MASON CITY – Details are emerging in the wake of an incident that took place weeks ago that a source tells NIT “could have killed” a city employee as he worked at a North End dog park that is under construction.
Very little, if any, news coverage has been given to an incident that took place a number of weeks ago near the intersection of North Connecticut Avenue and 13th Street NE at an area that is being molded into a dog park.
According to a source, a city worker was recently at the southwest corner of the park area attempting to remove an old fence that was installed decades ago, when the area was home to a meat-packing plant. Trees and stumps had overgrown the fence, and the employee was using a front end loader with a chain attached to pull out a stump when the chain either snapped or broke free and then re-coiled. The chain “snapped back” and went through the windshield on the front end loader, striking the employee in the head. The chain then smashed through the rear windshield, the source said.
For that kind of job, the source said that city workers “normally use a backhoe to do this kind of work… the supervisor made the worker go forward with the front end loader.”
The worker was critically injured. His identity is being withheld for this story. The source told NIT that the man suffered a shattered eye socket which had to be reconstructed and bleeding on the brain in three places. The man was in critical care at Mercy Hospital for a number of days.
NIT was told that two city employees immediately came to Mercy Hospital Emergency Room within minutes of the incident and attempted to interview the man before his family “chased them off.” The employees who came to Mercy were Safety Director Barb Wood and a human resources assistant.
NIT was further told that OSHA is in the process of writing citations and one of the citations may state that “no competent individual” was at the work site. A lawsuit is also in the process of being filed. The injured worker has not returned to the job yet, and the source says that the man may never come back.
In addition, NIT was told that “a lot of part-time help” was at the dog park site when the incident took place.
The source said that “you would not believe how much city resources have gone into this park,” describing a “huge, huge amount of city manpower, resources and materials have gone into this” park, which was mainly supposed to be funded by donations. The city recently designated thousands of dollars for fencing to be installed at the park and city employees can be seen at the location working regularly.
There’s been a “mad rush” to get done with the park, the source said.
City Hall never released any information on the incident. NIT will continue to investigate and obtain more detailed information.
