(The Associated Press circulated the following article on June 7.)
COVINGTON, Ga. — A General Mills employee’s legs were severed when he was run over in a train derailment in Covington.
The accident happened about 9 a.m. Sunday while the man and another employee were moving box cars around, said Covington Police Department Lt. Paul Dailey. The man was airlifted to Atlanta Medical Center. His co-workers packed the legs in ice, but doctors were not able to reattach the limbs, Dailey said.
Covington fire department Capt. Rob Christopher said the accident happened on a feeder rail line on General Mill’s property, downhill from the plant’s loading yard. A box car holding 250,000 pounds of wheat wasn’t secured, and it ran into track mobile, which is a machine used to move box cars from train rails, and an empty box car. The injured man was in front of the box car.
A second man, who was in the track mobile, suffered a cut on the back of his head. He was taken by ambulance to Newton Medical Center.
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the CSX Corporation, which owns the rail line, are taking over the investigation.
Dailey said investigators will try to determine if brakes were applied to the loaded rail car and if a switch on the rail line was broken. If the switch worked, it should have stopped the rail car.