ENOLA, Pa. — A 58-year-old Norfolk Southern employee died after falling into a 40-foot-deep pit at NS’s Enola Yard Diesel Shop at 5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 4.
Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall confirmed that the victim, Stuart Riggs of Mechanicsburg, Pa., lost his balance and fell to his death when a safety rail gave way. Cause of death was multiple traumatic injuries – accidental.
NS released this statement to the Daily Voice news outlet: “We were saddened that one of our employees suffered fatal injuries today from an accident at our Enola Yard. Local first responders and NS personnel are on the scene, and details of the incident are still being determined. The loved ones of our employee are in our thoughts, as are his colleagues.”
Built in 1948 at a cost of $2 million and enlarged several times since, the shop in the community adjacent to Harrisburg has posted many years of injury-free safety records. Although some layoffs have occurred, in recent years it has employed as many as 300 workers, primarily machinists and electricians.
This is why OSHA needs more random inspections…
Why do they need a 40′ deep pit?
Maybe he fell 40 feet into the pit. Obviously, locomotive and perhaps car shops, too, have pits under the track to access the bottoms of equipment for inspections and maintenance and while I have only extensive experience in one locations’ pits, I’m not sure why any pit would need to be deeper than would be practical for a person to be standing and work on the equipment above with an easy reach. I’d estimate that to be less than 10 feet. So, perhaps the worker was on an elevated position above the equipment but that still doesn’t seem to get close to 40 feet.
I agree with James. Maybe it was not inside the shops. Sounds like some kind of drainage or retention pit. They built one a few years ago in the NJ Transit yard by me and it’s only about 6 ft deep so the workers can reach there work. Even with that they sometimes need a step ladder.
40-foot-deep pit ( it’s a correct distance)