I have a pretty strong stomach, but don't know if I could have worked this one...
http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/366607.html
A North Broward garage for garbage trucks became the scene of a gruesome death Thursday morning when a mechanic was severed in half by the truck he was fixing, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.
Raul Figueroa, 45, of West Palm Beach, was working alone on the hydraulic system of a garbage truck at a repair facility in a Waste Management Inc. complex at 3831 N. Powerline Rd. near Deerfield Beach. While he was working, the truck's arms lifted and pinned him between the cab and waste container, said BSO spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright.
Figueroa's upper body was left atop the cab, while his lower body was crushed between the cab and trash container.
Figueroa was a mechanic in Cuba before coming to the United States a decade ago. With two daughters in Cuba, as well as a new grandson there, his work and his close-knit family in suburban West Palm Beach were the constants in his life. He grumbled sometimes when he rose at 4 a.m. to get to work before dawn, his stepdaughter said Thursday, but he enjoyed the life he made for his family here.
On Thursday night, at his family's comfortably furnished home, his cat Coco waited for him to return while his wife and stepdaughter braced themselves to call his daughters in Cuba and tell them what had happened. They had alerted an uncle to be at the family's Havana home to help break the news.
''His family was everything to him,'' said his stepdaughter, Yuleivi Hernandez, who added he raised her and her brother. When his wife Alina won a lottery giving her and her immediate family a visa to the United States, though, his family had to be divided, she said. He has returned to Cuba twice, and cherished his culture, she said.
He liked to cook Cuban food and enjoy a few beers with relatives on weekends, and looked forward to a third visit to Cuba this year to meet his new grandson, Hernandez said.
On Thursday, Figueroa, who has worked for Waste Management the past seven years, arrived at work around 5 a.m. and was found by another employee around 9 a.m.
The victim's brother-in-law works for Waste Management, but left the facility Thursday morning to comfort Figueroa's wife, Coleman Wright said.
An investigation is underway, but the incident appears to be an accident, she said.
A woman at the Waste Management front desk said the company had no comment.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also investigating Figueroa's death.
That investigation is still preliminary, said Darlene Fossum, area director for OSHA, who added that there is nothing that indicates Figueroa should have been with another worker at the time he died.
Fossum said that OSHA will determine whether the proper procedures were followed and whether all equipment was in working condition.
There were 57 work-related deaths in OSHA's South Florida region during the last fiscal year, between October of 2006 and September of 2007, Fossum said.
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