Police say 68-year-old James Hagerty, a seasonal employee for the county, was preparing to cut the grass on a hill near a pond in a county park. The lawn tractor he was riding slid down a hill, went over an embankment and overturned. Hagerty was trapped in a creek bed underneath the mower.

Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) says loss of stability is a hazard most often associated with riding mowers. There are 37,000 injuries related to riding mower incidents each year.

The CPSC says fatalities involving riding mowers have several common patterns: The machine tips over and the victim falls under or is run over by the machine.

The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) has a voluntary safety standard for mowers, ANSI/OPEI B71.1-2003.

The CPSC says when using a riding mower, mow up and down slopes, not across them. CPSC tips on riding mower safety can be found here.

The total fine is $75,000.

On Feb. 24, the whale, Tilikum, dragged trainer Dawn Brancheau under the water by grabbing her ponytail in front of about 50 spectators.

The autopsy report said Brancheau’s death was due to drowning and traumatic injuries.

OSHA says its investigation showed SeaWorld trainers had an extensive history of unexpected and potentially dangerous incidents involving killer whales at its various locations, including the one in Orlando.

The agency proposes that trainers not have physical contact with Tilikum unless they’re protected by a physical barrier.

OSHA issued:

• one willful citation for exposing employees to struck-by and drowning hazards when interacting with killer whales ($70,000)
• one serious citation for exposing employees to a fall hazard by failing to install a stairway railing system on a stage ($5,000), and
• one other-than-serious violation for failing to equip outdoor electrical receptacles in the stadium with weatherproof enclosures (no monetary penalty).

SeaWorld is contesting the citations and fines. In a statement, SeaWorld said it “disagrees with the unfounded allegations made by OSHA. OSHA’s allegations in this citation are unsupported by any evidence or precedent and reflect a fundamental lack of understanding of the safety requirements associated with marine mammal care.”

SeaWorld says it has conducted its own investigation into the fatality and has made changes to its safety program for the trainers who work with the whales.

What do you think? Should SeaWorld face an OSHA fine for the death of the trainer? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

A Shelby, NY, farm worker was lying on his back underneath a flatbed truck – apparently taking a late-afternoon nap. This proved to be the absolute worst place he could have caught some Z’s, when his co-worker, Armando Luna-Castillo, hopped into the truck’s cab.

It didn’t occur to him to check underneath the truck for sleeping employees before pulling out, and Luna-Castillo drove the truck away – running over his co-worker.

The coroner pronounced the run-over worker dead at the scene, however identifying him has been difficult, due to his questionable immigration status.

Both the coroner’s office and the sheriff’s department are investigating the incident.

John Adams, a maintenance man at an office building in Niagara Falls, NY, had been missing since July 4. The last time someone saw him, he was working at his maintenance job.

Owners of the One Niagara building had offered a $1,500 reward for information on Adams.

Finally, it was the building’s own video surveillance that showed what happened to Adams.

The video showed Adams entering an active trash compactor to retrieve a fallen garbage bin and apparently being crushed by the device. The device was a large, self-contained Dumpster that has a mechanical compacting mechanism that prevented him from being able to escape and made it impossible for co-workers to realize what occurred.

Why wasn’t the building’s surveillance tape checked until three weeks after Adams was reported missing?

Representatives for the building told the Niagara Gazette an initial police search of the compactor turned up no conclusive evidence of Adams’ remains.

William Jackson, a 19-year-old DC resident, recently walked into a Metro bus yard in full driver uniform, got into a bus, drove off and picked up passengers on the B2 route.

The passengers didn’t suspect their driver was an impostor, until he crashed the bus into a tree and several cars four miles into the route.

Jackson fled but was later arrested. He faces charges of unauthorized use of a vehicle and fleeing an accident.

A spokesman with the Metro Transit Police Department said Jackson simply had a fascination with buses.

This incident is the latest in a series of safety problems for DC’s Metro, including bus drivers striking pedestrians, workers being seriously hurt or killed, and a deadly subway crash that led the Federal Transit Administration to issue scathing safety criticism of the public transit system in the nation’s capital.

Metro says work is underway to enhance security at its facilities.

After losing seven-and-a-half fingers in an industrial accident, 53-year-old Manuel Rosario said he, not his employer, was to blame.

It happened last week at the Long Island (NY) aerospace company, Hughes-Treitler.  Rosario said the machine he was working on slammed shut before he could pull his hands away.

He lost all his digits except two thumbs and part of his right pinkie.

But he said in an interview, “You have to be strong and take care of what happened to you.”

Of course, OSHA is now investigating the accident. And it seems doubtful that its attitude toward the company will be as forgiving.

Police say Bruce Florence was working in the outdoor garden center at a Wal-Mart near Ft. Worth, TX, when customer William Kennedy tried walking out with a 26-inch TV he hadn’t paid for.

When Florence stepped in front of Kennedy, telling him electronics weren’t allowed in the garden center, Kennedy allegedly pushed Florence to the ground. Police say Kennedy fled in an SUV with a driver waiting inside.

Doctors say Florence suffered a head injury — bleeding in the brain — as a result of the fall.

He died six days later in the hospital.

Kennedy has been jailed on charges of theft at several stores.

Police say he could be charged with murder if the medical examiner determines that Florence died from the head injuries he suffered in the incident.

An unidentified man was drawn into a sausage-making machine in Danvers, MA. Somehow, even though his head and shoulders were pulled in, he escaped injury.

The man was part of a cleaning crew at DiLuigi Sausage Co. He was cleaning inside a vacuum-type cylinder that draws marinade into the meat, according to police.

The machine was activated while the man was still cleaning inside it. He was taken to a hospital, but showed no signs of serious injuries.

OSHA is investigating.

Old Dominion Tree & Lawn Care of Poquoson, VA, has been fined $185,500 in the death of Frank Gornik for 20 serious and willful violations including lack of safety checks of machines and regular performance of maintenance repairs. The company has 15 days to decide whether to contest the fines.

Police say Gornik was shoveling debris into a wood chipper when the shovel got caught in the blades and pulled him into the machine.

Gornik was working with two adult employees, but they were away from the chipper when he was pulled in.

The company is owned by Robert Stickland. He and his wife took Gornik into their home after the death of both his parents.

Virginia child labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from operating any power woodworking machine, including a wood chipper. Click here to find out what jobs teens under age 18 are prohibited from doing.

A worker at a bear park smoked pot before coming to work where he fed grizzlies. The worker was seriously injured by one of the bears. A workers’ compensation judge called that “mind-bogglingly stupid.” But did the judge rule the worker was entitled to workers’ comp?

Montana’s comp law says: “An employee is not eligible for benefits otherwise payable under this chapter if the employee’s use of alcohol or drugs not prescribed by a physician is the major contributing cause of the accident.”

Here’s what happened in this case:

Employee Brock Hopkins entered a pen at Great Bear Adventures in West Glacier, MT, to feed grizzlies. He was attacked by one of the bears and escaped by crawling under an electrified fence. He suffered severe injuries.

Hopkins admits he smoked marijuana that day. (Changed from original version to clarify that the defendant smoked marijuana on the day of the incident.)

His employer presented no evidence about his level of impairment on the day of the attack.

Hopkins sought workers’ comp benefits for his injuries but was initially denied on the grounds that his use of marijuana was the major contributing cause of the accident. Hopkins appealed to the state’s Workers’ Compensation Court.

Here’s what the judge wrote: “When it comes to attacking humans, grizzlies are equal opportunity maulers, attacking without regard to race, creed, ethnicity, or marijuana usage. Hopkins’ use of marijuana to kick off a day of working around grizzly bears was ill advised to say the least and mind-bogglingly stupid to say the most.”

The judge noted that, while using pot before interacting with bears may have been stupid, there was no evidence presented to conclude that Hopkins’ pot use was the major cause of the incident.

The decision: Hopkins was entitled to workers’ comp benefits.

What do you think about the judge’s decision in this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Hopkins v. Uninsured Employers’ Fund, Workers’ Compensation Court of MT, No. 2008-2152, 5/4/10.

A worker was killed when a 4,500 pound steel safe fell off a dolly and crushed him at a Chase Bank branch in Key-Caryl Ranch, CO. The safe measured six feet by four feet.

The employee of Security and Safe of Colorado, 41-year-old Donald Lindsey, was helping to move the safe into a room when it tipped and pinned him against a door.

Authorities say Lindsey didn’t die right away, but rescuers couldn’t reach him quickly because the safe blocked the door.

Others were also trapped inside the room.

Firefighters had to cut through a wall to get to the victim, but by the time they reached him, he had died.

Crews had to cut through another wall to get to the others trapped in the room.

OSHA is investigating.

Lenny Guida, president of Denver’s Master Security Center, says, “If a safe starts going, we tell everyone, ‘You never try to stop it. You just get out of the way. You don’t try to catch it.’”

On May 10 at night, workers at a Waste Management plant in Antioch, TN, noticed one of their co-workers was missing.

Employees dumped out trash from semi-trucks and about a half hour later found the body of the missing worker buried in trash. The victim’s identity wasn’t released.

OSHA will investigate.

Police believe the man was standing near a large pile of trash when he got caught in front of a bulldozer that compacts garbage into trailers.

An autopsy will be performed to determine the exact cause of death, although it’s believed the man suffocated.

Jabin Lakes, a maintenance worker for the City of Middletown, was found dead at the bottom of a manhole. He’d opened the cover to do a routine visual check of sewer lines.

Lakes hadn’t gone below ground. Authorities believe he lost consciousness and fell in.

An autopsy may determine whether Lakes died of exposure to the fumes or from his fall.

One firefighter was lowered into the hole by a rope and was quickly overcome by the same fumes. Two other firefighters standing outside the hole also began to have difficulty breathing.

The firefighters weren’t using breathing apparatus because they thought they were responding to a fall.

The firefighter who was lowered into the hole remains in a hospital intensive care unit. Another firefighter is hospitalized in fair condition, and the third was treated and released.

Initial tests indicate the fumes might have been nitrogen. Further tests will determine what the fumes were.

The manhole is in front of an Air Products and Chemicals facility that supplies oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen to AK Steel’s Middletown Works. Authorities say they can’t rule out that Air Products was the source of the fumes.

Since the incident involved public employees, OSHA won’t investigate.

Witnesses say 39-year-old Kenneth Ray Rockwell of Grand Rapids, MI, was thrown from a front-end loader when he lost control of the vehicle. The loader ran over him after he was thrown. He was pronounced dead at the scene in Garfield Township, MI.

Rockwell had been removing trees with the loader when it tipped over on a steep hill.

Rockwell worked for Anderson Tree Service, which is owned by his father.

Doctors reattached the limb, and initial results appear positive.

The unidentified worker, a plumbing subcontractor, was operating a lift machine with his arm extended outside of its cage.

When he went through a doorway, his arm hit a vertical I-beam and was severed at a point between the elbow and wrist.

After the surgery, the arm regained sustained blood flow, a sign the procedure may have been successful.

OSHA is investigating.

ABC News included the video as part of a Nightline story on workplace safety and OSHA.

OSHA fined Cintas $2.75 million for violations of safety rules involving the dryers, a result of investigations after Gomez’s death.

The ABC News piece is worth watching for another reason: In it, OSHA administrator David Michaels says, “There is an epidemic of programs that discourage workers from reporting injuries.”

He mentioned incentive programs that reward workers when there are no reported injuries.

The piece goes on to tell the story of two Smurfit-Stone workers who say they were directly discouraged from reporting workplace injuries by their supervisors.

Michaels made it clear OSHA is looking for companies that hide injuries. “We know we’re not getting accurate figures, and we need to do something about that,” Michaels said.

Does your company have a safety incentive program that rewards employees for something other than a lack of injuries? Let us know about it in the Comments Box below.

OSHA cited Birdair, Inc., of Amherst, NY, for the incident in which two workers slid about 260 feet down the side of the domed roof. One of the workers suffered head and chest trauma and a broken leg. The other hurt his back.

Birdair faces $45,000 in fines for:

• one willful violation for employees not wearing the correct fall protection equipment, and
• one serious violation for workers not trained about hazards associated with falls.

Birdair says it will contest the citations.

An OSHA spokeswoman told the Star-Telegram that the workers were wearing fall protection gear, but it wasn’t tied off in accordance with OSHA standards.

The injured men were among employees finishing work on the stadium’s fabric roof panels.

Larry Collins was running sanding equipment at the metal polishing company he owns with his brother in Holland Township, MI, when he was shocked by the machine.

A co-worker managed to push him away from the machine. Other workers started CPR.

But when the deputies arrived, Collins wasn’t breathing.

All Ottawa County, MI, sheriff’s cars have a portable automated external defibrillator (AED) in their trunks.

Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Brookhouse says within 30 seconds of using an AED on Collins, he started to move and breathe.

Collins was taken to a local hospital for additional treatment.

“It (the AED) saved this guy’s life,” said Brookhouse. “He’s the luckiest guy around.”

Does your workplace have AEDs on site? Have you ever experience a situation in which one had to be used at work? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Police in Westmont, IL, say William Zuponeck, a Midas Auto Services employee, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics.

According to the police report, sparks flew from a welding torch Zuponeck was using and ignited residual chemical vapors from the 55-gallon drum.

He was killed after being struck by objects that were thrown by the blast.

Police say the chemical may have been methanol which is used in window washer fluid to prevent it from freezing.

Daly City, CA, police say Moustafa Algazawy was changing a light bulb above some storage lockers when he fell.

He stood on top of a metal cage that stores propane tanks to change the bulb.

He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

An autopsy will determine whether Algazawy died from electrocution or the fall.

A manager who saw the employee fall suffered a heart attack. Cal-OSHA says the manager had a “severe grief reaction” after witnessing the worker’s death.

Elephant handler Andrew Anderton was found lying on the floor at the Irem Shrine Armory in Wilkes Barre, PA, which was hosting the James Hamid Circus. Standing nearby was Dumbo the elephant.

Circus Chairman John Richards says Anderton was alone with Dumbo when the incident occurred.

Richards says it’s believed Anderton was trying to fix some electrical wires in the building’s ceiling which were sparking near Dumbo.

Richards speculates the elephant, in an attempt to protect Anderton from the sparking wires, grabbed him and moved him away.

The coroner says Anderton didn’t suffer any electrical injuries and was bumped by the elephant. The coroner has no doubt the elephant caused the multiple traumatic injuries that led to Anderton’s death.

Anderton worked with the elephant for 20 years.

The armory, home to a National Guard brigade, was slated to receive a major face lift last fall including major improvements to electrical systems. The brigade’s facility manager and an electrician inspected the building before the circus arrived and found it safe.

Although this is certainly a unique workplace death, it shares one thing in common with other on-the-job fatalities where an employee is working alone: It will be difficult to know exactly what led to the death because of a lack of witnesses.

Richards told The Times Leader there were only two entities that know exactly what happened. Now one is dead and the elephant can’t talk.

Cal-OSHA is investigating an incident at Gafix Screen Printing in Cotati.

Reports say Lon Martinsen had his hand cut off while working with a large, electric paper cutter.

The company’s office manager, Michele Holman, said Martinsen was cutting vinyl material used to make stickers and decals. “He said it just came down on him, so he must have been distracted,” Holman said.

Co-workers responded quickly, using T-shirts and towels to create a tourniquet to try to stop the bleeding.

Martinsen was conscious through the incident.

He was taken to a local hospital and then transferred to one in San Francisco where doctors hoped they could reattach his hand.

That’s what happened at Ohio Decorative Products in Spencerville, OH. Now the company also faces $91,000 in OSHA fines.

A worker was scalped when his hair was entangled in an unprotected rotating shaft on a piece of equipment. He was first taken to a local hospital then flown to one in Toledo for treatment.

The company received three OSHA citations — one willful, one serious and one repeat — all for failure to provide proper machine guarding.

OSHA had inspected the company 12 times before and issued 77 citations.

Anna Ayala just finished serving four years in prison for her part in the scam on Wendy’s.

In an interview with a reporter from KPIX-TV, Ayala divulged new details about the ruse. (Watch the video here.)

Among the details: She cooked the finger.

She paid Brian Rossiter, a friend of her husband’s, $100 for his finger that was severed in a workplace incident.

Ayala obviously put some thought into her crime. To make the finger look like it was cooked in chili at Wendy’s, she did just that … except she did it at home.

She bought a cup of Wendy’s chili, took it home, and cooked the finger in the chili.

Then she left for a trip to Mexico. Her TV interviewer asked whether she took the finger with her to Mexico. The finger missed out on the vacation: She left it at home in the freezer.

Wendy’s lost at estimated $21 million in business after Ayala claimed she bit into the finger while eating chili in one of the chain’s restaurants in San Jose, CA.

As a condition of her parole, Ayala is banned from Wendy’s for life.

Alejandro Valladares was killed after falling head-first into a trench from the forks of a forklift at a construction site in Hermosa Beach.

Valladares was buried beneath excavated soil that caved in on top of him.

Workers for a contractor, David B. Shaw Concrete and Block, were installing a temporary shoring beam into a 12-foot-long trench.

Valladares was standing on a plywood platform that had been placed on the fork of the forklift. He was using a handheld compactor to drive a beam into a hole. The lift carrying him was about 15 feet from the base of the trench. He lost his balance due to heavy vibration from the compactor.

Workers couldn’t rescue Valladares because the ground in the area wasn’t stable.

Emergency workers used cranes to recover his body, a task that took four hours.

Cal-OSHA stopped work at the site and is investigating.

Valladares was just 29-year-old.

Trenches more than five-feet deep must be properly shored. Also, workers should not ride on the forks of a forklift unless a specialized platform is used.

Paramedic Dan McIntosh was the first on the scene of a 911 call in Bensalem, PA, trying to help a man who’d threatened to kill himself.

The man, Edwin Agosto, ran when the ambulance arrived.

McIntosh ran after him and then dropped to the ground.

He suffered a massive heart attack. The fall caused severe trauma to McIntosh’s head.

His own rescue crew rushed him to the hospital where the 39-year-old was pronounced dead. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

Agosto apologized to McIntosh’s family. “I did not want it to happen like this,” he said.

17-year-old Ameri Zequir was taking out garbage from a Long Island, NY, Dunkin Donuts, when he fell into an uncovered manhole and died in the cesspool below.

His death wasn’t instant. Rescuers were able to talk to him as he struggled to stay afloat in the hole filled with 8 feet of sewage.

Zequir was pulled out but pronounced dead at a local hospital.

According to WCBS-TV, garbage bins were located behind some sawhorses with the open cesspool nearby.

Neighbors said the alley containing the open cesspool had been in disrepair for years.

Sources told WCBS that criminal charges hinge on how long the cesspool was open and who knew about the danger. The county district attorney is investigating.

Police say it’s possible the cesspool cover was dislodged during snow removal, but no one knows why it remained open.

Detectives have found half of the manhole cover and believe the other half may be at the bottom of the pit that Zeqir fell into.

SeaWorld officials say they are reviewing safety and training rules it has in place for interacting with all killer whales at all three of its parks.

Shows with the whales were expected to continue. Trainers won’t enter the water with the whales until the investigation into the death of trainer Dawn Brancheau is completed.

Meanwhile, the former head of animal training at SeaWorld Orlando says rules for handling the killer whales that were in place during his tenure had either been broken or changed.

Thad Lacinak says there were special rules for dealing with Tilikum, the largest whale of his species in captivity.

Because of his size and involvement in the deaths of a trainer at another park in 1991 and a guest at SeaWorld in 1999, Lacinak said a trainer should not have been lying down in the water close to Tilikum as Brancheau did before the attack.

Lacinak said the attack was triggered by the trainer’s mistake, allowing her long ponytail to drift in the water in front of the whale.

He says the whale probably thought the ponytail was a new toy, and that’s why it dragged Brancheau underwater by her hair.

Meanwhile, a report in the Orlando Sentinel says SeaWorld has a policy forbidding its killer-whale trainers from having dangling hair that the animals could grab.

That information was contained in a Cal/OSHA report about a 2006 incident at the company’s San Diego park in which an orca grabbed a trainer by the feet and held him underwater. The trainer suffered injuries to his feet.

The Cal/OSHA report was controversial for another reason. It originally stated, “If someone hasn’t been killed already, it is only a matter of time before it does happen,” regarding trainers working with the whales.

However, after SeaWorld criticized the original report and met with Cal/OSHA officials, that language was taken out of the final report.

What do you think about OSHA’s involvement in this investigation? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Nathan Shair, a 22-year-old university student, was fatally struck in the head by a spring-loaded lever from the machine on July 12, 2007.

Shair was a summer intern at XI Technologies of Calgary, Alberta.

He was one of three people operating the machine at the company’s stampede party.

Shair died in the hospital the next day.

XI is accused of failing to reasonably ensure the safety of a worker and failing to ensure that all equipment used on the work site could operate as it was intended.

Radar’s Rentals is charged with failing to ensure the equipment it supplied was working properly.

Both companies have pleaded not guilty.

They face a maximum penalty of $500,000 or six months in prison.

This is how the mechanical horse worked: When a rider kicked the machine, a calf would spring out from underneath the horse frame, allowing the rider to rope it.

News accounts don’t say whether Shair was required to work at the party as part of his internship. However, in an interview, the victim’s sister characterized her brother’s participation at the event as “helping out.”

Should the employer be held responsible for the intern’s death in this case? Let us know what you think in the Comments Box below.

Handler Robert Shields was killed when a horse reared up and tumbled over on top of him at Tampa Bay Downs in Florida. The force of the horse’s fall crushed him.

Shields was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. The horse wasn’t injured.

Handlers wear helmets and protective jackets when working with the horses.

Tampa City Council member Charlie Miranda works at the racetrack. He says even with the safety gear, handlers, groomers and jockeys suffer injuries. Miranda told the St. Petersburg Times he was hospitalized for 18 days after an accident involving a horse.

Steven Uptegrove was killed on Aug. 20, 2009, when he and another forest service worker were loading trash from an illegal marijuana grow into sling loads that were hauled away by a Chinook helicopter.

Investigators believe rotor wash — wind generated by the helicopter’s two rotors — toppled the dead tree that hit Uptegrove.

OSHA said the forest service didn’t identify and remove dangerous trees before its employees began working in the area.

OSHA also cited Wallowa-Whitman for allowing Uptegrove to wear a hard hat that didn’t comply with current safety standards, although the agency doesn’t believe another type of hard hat would have saved him. Another citation said the forest service failed to require an employee to wear complete eye protection, such as goggles, while exposed to flying debris.

Wallowa-Whitman won’t have to pay a fine because OSHA doesn’t issue penalties to federal agencies.

A sanitation employee, who was preparing to urinate while standing on a platform on the back of a garbage truck, fell off the truck as it was backing up. He was killed after the truck backed over him. His family is seeking workers’ comp benefits because of a modification made to the truck.

Michael LaPoint’s family argues this is an intentional wrong exception under the Workers’ Compensation Act, and they should be paid death benefits.

His employer, a township in New Jersey, says LaPoint ignored warnings about riding on the back of garbage trucks, especially when they were backing up.

The rear sides of the truck had warning decals stating, “CAUTION: Do not use riding step when vehicle is exceeding 10 MPH, operating in reverse or traveling in excess of 2/10 miles.” The township also provided employees with pamphlets containing similar warnings.

However, the township installed a platform step on the back of the truck. LaPoint’s family said the modification “clearly provided a substantial hazard that was certain to result in accidents, injury or death.”

In support of that argument, the family showed that the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) eliminated rear platform steps on sanitation trucks from its standards in 1999 because of backup accidents that had occurred.

The court ruled in favor of the township and denied death benefits. The judges wrote, “In cases where the workers’ compensation bar was pierced, courts have cited repeated or knowing violations of OSHA regulations. This court is not aware of any case law indicating that non-compliance with a non-binding advisory standard is sufficient to make a showing of intentional wrong.”

The court also said that, since warning stickers and pamphlets were distributed, LaPoint “should have appreciated the risk in riding on the truck in reverse.”

The family also disputed the witness testimony that LaPoint was getting ready to urinate into the back of the truck. The court said that wasn’t crucial to the case.

Do you think the court made the right decision? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Cite: Mann v. Packer, Superior Crt. of NJ Appellate Div., No. A-1293-08T2, 1/13/10.

In this case, it was a bystander who was hit, but the story still conveys the need for employees to make sure equipment and stock is always safely secured.

An 82-year-old woman died two days after a hose dangling off a passing fire truck struck her in Cambridge, MA.

The truck was on the way to a fire call when a hose slipped out of a compartment on the vehicle’s side.

The driver didn’t know the hose was unspooling.

Police say as the truck turned a corner, “the hose swung around like a slingshot and the (metal nozzle) end of the hose” hit Gertrude King behind the knees.

King had been standing on an island median waiting for the truck to pass.

The Cambridge Fire Department is investigating why the hose came loose.

Authorities say Richard Basque was using a propane torch to thaw a frozen valve on a tanker truck when an explosion threw him 12 feet. He was killed instantly. Other employees at Tiger Tank Trucks suffered minor injuries.

The explosion was felt about two miles away. It blew sheet metal off the trucking company and shattered windows in adjacent buildings.

County Sheriff Shannon Smith told The Oklahoman it’s standard practice for truckers to use a propane torch to heat frozen truck valves.

The tanker was used to haul salt water and crude oil.

Dallas Wiens’ head touched a high-voltage power line while he was standing in a cherry picker making repairs to a church window in Fort Worth.

Wiens doesn’t remember the incident. He awoke three months later in the hospital.

Doctors didn’t expect him to live. But after more than 20 surgeries, he’s living with his grandparents. The Dallas News describes his face now as “a smooth, featureless melon of skin and muscle harvested from elsewhere on his body.”

A photo shows what Wiens looks like today. His mouth is the only feature left on his face. (Note: The photo is disturbing.)

Wiens will make two trips to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston where one successful face transplant was done last year, to determine if he is a candidate for a similar operation. Only two such transplants have ever been done in the U.S.

His other option is facial reconstruction using prosthetic or artificial parts.

As is, his story of survival is inconceivable. But even more incredible is Wiens’ positive attitude toward life.

Regarding the possibility of the facial transplant, Wiens said, “If that’s the route I go, God’s going to lead me and take care of me.”