November 18, 2004
Fatal accident After the death of one of his most trusted and competent workers Tuesday, the Tippecanoe County Highway Department supervisor says he is now hoping for some sort of closure. "I was up all night, drawing pictures, thinking how this could happen," said Joseph Buntin, the highway supervisor. One of the department's four foremen, Richard "Butch" Davis, 49, of Colburn, died Tuesday after being struck by a dump truck. And fellow workers paid tribute to Davis on Wednesday by attaching black ribbons to their truck antennas while flags at county buildings flew at half-staff. A representative from the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Division spent about four hours Wednesday at the highway garage and at the accident scene at County Road 450 South, about a mile east of Concord Road, Buntin said. Deputies from the sheriff's department on Tuesday also tried to reconstruct the events leading to Davis' death. Buntin said he hopes findings from both investigations will shed light on how Davis ended up behind a dump truck that only moments before he had directed to back up. "That just wasn't Butch's way, to walk behind a truck," Buntin said. "I still don't know what happened." Fellow employees said Davis' 26 years of experience at the department made him nearly irreplaceable. "Butch would never criticize people," said Jerry Ping, 46, a truck driver. "He would never belittle a person. He was the kind of person you would look forward to work for. You might think, `Well, I'm going to take a sick day tomorrow.' But you know if you're working with him, it'll be worth going in and getting to work." Russell Lerch, 49, an asphalt foreman, said the job of foreman carries much responsibility and is not easy. "You come in and you have to be able to be fair with the guys," he said. "If they're having problems, you have to show them how to do the job - don't just tell them to do something and walk away from them. If they're having problems, you got to stay with them and help them until they learn the routine." Davis handled it skillfully, he said. "Whenever you gave Butch a job, you didn't have to worry about it," he said. "It would probably be done right. You couldn't find a better worker. He was right alongside you in the trenches." Buntin said Davis was responsible for a large number of the compliments the department has received over the years. Many of those resulted from the prompt way the foreman would respond to complaints, of which 1,600 have come in this year. "He goes out there, talks to them, knows what they want, figures it out," Buntin said. "And 95 percent of the time we'll get a phone call saying good job with that. People have no idea how many compliments are sent to us. And Butch was one of the top ones. When he went to do something, it was always done perfect." Tim Crouse, deputy commissioner of the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Division, said that under Indiana law, his division has six months to determine from its investigation whether the county needs to implement any further safety precautions. He said such accidents are more common than people might think, particularly in the workplace. "Vehicle-related accidents are one of the more frequent causes of worker fatalities," he said. "Obviously, construction work is inherently dangerous. Falls are the number one cause of fatalities in construction." County workers along with employees at IMI, Milestone Contractors, Purdy Materials and Rieth-Riley Construction worked together Wednesday to provide meals for the families of Davis and Gregory Potts, 41, of Battle Ground, who drove the dump truck in the accident. They also donated meals to workers at the county highway garage. "That family has to be hurting just as much as the one with the loss, and I thought it was necessary (to show that) we were thinking about them as well," county commissioner Ruth Shedd said. Buntin said Potts is not scheduled to return to work until Nov. 29, although he will come in today for a counseling session for all of the department's workers. Ping said he thinks Potts will be received with sympathy. "It's pretty traumatic experience for him to go through," he said. "I realize it's an accident. There's some things that just can't be avoided. Just try to give him all the moral support we can and try to help him out on the way." |