Leonardo Espinabarros Telles of Vera Cruz, Mexico, died Tuesday afternoon after he was caught in a large diesel generator fan and sustained massive trauma wounds to the torso.
Espinabarros, 40, was an employee of Crystal Rock Amusement Corporation. Espinabarros was setting up a carnival at the Lamoille County Field Days in Johnson. Though Northern EMS is located adjacent to the field days, the wounds were too great for the emergency personnel and local volunteers. Espinabarros was pronounced dead en route to Copley Hospital.
“We investigated it, we found there was no foul play,” Lieutenant Brian Miller of the Vermont State Police said. “It’s a tragic work place accident and now VOSHA picks it up and they go from there.”
The Vermont Occupational Safety and Health Administration was contacted regarding the incident almost immediately after it happened. VOSHA conducts a separate investigation when an accident occurs at a work place in Vermont. Currently, the investigation is still in progress and according to Robert McLeod, VOSHA’s manager, there was an investigator on scene after the accident and again Wednesday.
“It requires a lot of interviewing and it takes a lot of time,” McLeod said.
The day after the incident, preparation for the upcoming field days continued. Trailers, trucks and rides yet to be set up scattered the field as workers, worked painting buildings, moving equipment and setting up tents. A cross surrounded by flowers bearing respect for Espinabarros was set up against a fence behind a blood-splattered patch of grass. A general mood of sadness hung in the air as a coworker, who wished to remain anonymous, described Espinabarrosas a “hard worker” and a “great guy.”
Espinabarros’ death is the second work-related death this week. Michael Loyer, 46, of South Burlington, was crushed under a pipe while working on the west side of Lake Champlain Monday.
Espinabarros, working with the Massachusetts based company was in the States with a nonagricultural H2B work visa and he is the second migrant worker in the last 19 months to be involved with a work-related death. José Obeth Santiz Cruz, an undocumented Mexican dairy worker, died working on a farm in Fairfield on Dec. 22, 2009. According to VOSHA, immigration status has no effect on an investigation.
“No matter who the person is, all people must have a safe work place in Vermont,” McLeod said.
Bilingual translators were needed at the site to help translate from Spanish to English and vice versa. Father Gerard Leclerc has a ministry based out of Richmond for Hispanic people in Vermont and was in Johnson Wednesday morning.
“We’ve got to do something about their (migrant workers) migration. We got a problem in us as a people,” Leclerc said. “We need them, but we don’t want them.”
According to Leclerc there was a surplus of priests being ordained in the 1960’s so he moved to Bolivia to help spread out. He learned Spanish in Lima and has been working with Hispanic people in Vermont for the last seven years.
“If it was not for them (migrant workers), farming in Vermont would be dead,” Leclerc said. ‘Now is our chance to have a little justice for them with the 2012 elections right around the corner.”
