Man Killed By Falling Pipe At Well Site

An Indiana County man was killed yesterday when a pipe reportedly fell on him at a gas well drilling site in North Beaver Township.

The man has been identified as 60-year-old Leonard Clair Long Jr. of Glen Campbell, Pa.

Emergency officials did not know late yesterday the name of the company for which Long was working, but said he was not an employee of Hilcorp Energy, which runs the drilling operation at the site.

Deputy coroner Alfred DeCarbo said reports were that Long and other workers were securing a load of sections of steel and drilling equipment onto a truck when two of the pipes fell and one struck him in the chest. He estimated the pipe to weigh between 1,200 to 1,500 pounds.

A state police news report said Long was standing next to the truck on the ground when he was hit. No other injuries were reported.

North Beaver fire Chief Paul Henry said they received a call around 11 a.m. that a pipe had fallen on a man at the well site.

“When we got there, the man was in cardiac arrest,” Henry said.

Members of the North Beaver Township fire department and workers on site who were trained in CPR worked for about 45 minutes or longer to resuscitate him, but their efforts were unsuccessful. Henry said a STAT Medevac helicopter also arrived and its crew members also assisted in the efforts.

DeCarbo said he pronounced Long dead at 12:17 p.m. An autopsy was scheduled for last night at Heritage Valley Health Center in Beaver County to determine the exact cause of death. He said that  Long apparently had suffered chest trauma.

Henry said the department received the first call around 11 a.m. that a pipe had fallen onto a man at the Kephart well site, a drilling operation by Hilcorp Energy. The site is off Mount Jackson Road (Route 551), en route to SNPJ Borough and Enon Valley.

Henry said that when the fire department arrived at the accident scene, no ambulances were available to respond from Lawrence County. The first responding ambulance arrived from the Medical Center in Beaver about 20 minutes to half an hour later, he estimated.

Both Henry and DeCarbo said they believe the accident will be investigated by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Attempts to reach Tom Havranek, Hilcorp operations director, were unsuccessful late yesterday afternoon.

Source: NC News Online