Construction company fined for Petaluma accident that killed worker

A state regulatory agency Wednesday fined a San Rafael-based construction company for an accident at a Petaluma construction site that killed one of its employees, a 28-year-old construction worker from Novato.

California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued a $38,250 fine to the construction firm Maggiora & Ghilotti Inc. for failing to equip the construction site and its equipment with proper worker safety protections.

“This fatality could have been avoided had the required safety measures been in place for working at a hazardous location,” Christine Baker, director for the Department of Industrial Relations, the parent agency overseeing Cal/OSHA, said in a news release.

Around 7 a.m. on April 15, Jared Overfield, an employee for Maggiora & Ghilotti, was working on a Highway 101 project that involved replacing an old water pipe near a frontage road where Petaluma Boulevard South connects with Kastania Road. Overfield was assisting a forklift operator attempting to transport a 40-foot, 8,000-pound concrete-coated steel pipe down a sloping dirt road when the massive pipe rolled down a hillside, crushing him to death.

Cal/OSHA officials said Wednesday that the pipe was not secured to the forklift and it was unloaded onto the ground without anything that could have prevented it from rolling.

Overfield was facing the pipe when it slid off the forklift. It rolled over him and slammed into a chain-link fence.

Cal/OSHA officials said of the accident, “employers must be vigilant in recognizing job hazards and keeping their employees safe by taking the necessary precautions.”

Maggiora & Ghilotti has been cited by Cal/OSHA three times, once for failing to plan for hazards when transporting steel pipe, once for inadequately surveying for hazards of uneven ground and once for not securing piping while transporting it, according to the agency.

You can reach Staff Writer Angela Hart at 526-8503 or angela.hart@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@ahartreports.