An Anchorage construction firm is contesting more than half a million dollars in fines levied against it by state officials, who say company workers fatally injured a colleague by using heavy equipment to dig him out of a collapsed trench last year.

Hartman Construction's challenge of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development's $560,000 in fines will go before the Alaska Occupational Safety and Health Review Board on Oct. 5, during a public hearing in downtown Anchorage. The case stems from the June 16, 2015, death of 23-year-old Samuel Morgan in South Anchorage.

State investigators said Morgan was standing in a 7-foot-deep trench that collapsed as a crew was laying sewer pipe near 91st Avenue and King Street, burying him to the waist. Investigators said company co-owner David Hartman and other workers used two excavators in an attempt to free Morgan, who died at the scene from injuries that an autopsy determined "resulted from being struck by construction equipment."

More details here.

Source: Alaska Dispatch News