Steel's deadly week Three men die in separate incidents

Oct 28, 2004 | 11:05 AM |

Three steel company workers died in separate incidents this week, two in plant accidents and one the apparent victim of murder.

Donald Vanhoose, 27, of Cookville, Texas, died Tuesday of injuries he sustained in a fall while working at the Crawfordsville, Ind., plant of Nucor Corp.

Officials from the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration (IOSHA) are investigating the accident, which reportedly occurred when Vanhoose, an independent contractor working in the plant, fell 30 feet from a furnace deck onto a dirt floor.

Vanhoose was an employee of Schueck Steel of Little Rock, Ark. He was working as an independent contractor in the plant when he fell into a pit that normally holds a slag pot. The pot had been moved while contract workers replaced a floor, according to the Indianapolis Star.

Nucor said in a statement that it contracts Schueck Steel to perform maintenance at several of its facilities. The steelmaker said the Crawfordsville steel sheet mill was just beginning a week-long maintenance outage, which it undergoes once a year, when the accident occurred.....