Published: July 14, 2008 11:54 pm         

Numerous safety improvements made in decade since Parks Department employee’s death

TERRE HAUTE — An accident that 10 years ago today claimed the life of Kenneth A. Conley has since changed how the Vigo County Park and Recreation Department operates.

Conley had been driving a tractor mower up a steep hill along an earthen dam at Hawthorn Park when the tractor flipped backward, up and over onto Conley, killing the 41-year-old park employee.

It was the first and only death in the department since Keith Ruble became park superintendent in 1973 and sparked an investigation from the Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Organization.

At that time, the county Park Department was cited for 17 safety violations, 12 of which were considered serious.

“The inspection was closed on Sept. 11, 1998 and the case closed May 17, 1999. There was no fine, but that is not uncommon,” as the Park Department is a government agency, said Sean Keefer, IOSHA spokesman and deputy commissioner of the Indiana Department of Labor’s INSafe program, a compliance consultation safety program.

Then on Sept. 22, 2004, IOSHA made a “planned inspection, meaning that IOSHA just showed up without giving any advanced notice. That case was closed on Oct. 13, 2004 and no citations or violations were given out, so they obviously had a better safety record,” Keefer said.

Ruble said the Park Department since has all new equipment, all with roll bars for safety.

“Because of [Conley’s] death, we had to do a lot of things. [IOSHA] caused us to do all kinds of things to make things better safetywise in the parks,” Ruble said. “Even things that did not relate to this accident we had to change, such as safety shields on saws or grinding wheels. They looked at the whole operation and we came out the better for it. It makes people a lot more safety conscious.”

Tractors now have safety belts, so if there is a rollover, it holds the driver in the seat. “Roll bars are not any good if you don't have a safety belt to hold you in,” Ruble said. In addition to roll bars, “we have four-wheel-drive equipment to get up and down places, where back then it was two-wheel drive,” Ruble said.

Ruble said the tractor Conley used was allowable for mowing at the time.

“The county had been grandfathered, I guess that is what you call it, at the time for equipment in use,” he said.

“We don’t know what happened, as he was by himself. We have an idea. The tractor had a gravity-type fuel flow system and gas went back [in a fuel line] as he went uphill and the tractor sputtered and died. Then he hit the clutch and it rolled straight backward,” Ruble said.

The Park Department does not mow the dam area anymore, but relies on the county highway department, which uses a sidearm mower that cuts the grass, usually in August, after bird nesting season is finished, Ruble said.

The Park Department does continue to mow other parks, such as Fowler Park, which has steep places, but workers mow downhill “from the top down in a steep area, so they are not going up the slope, but going down the slope, which is a lot safer,” Ruble said. “We mow from the top going down and don’t have machines mowing from the side, because it could tip over.”

Also, equipment has to be unlocked and “tagged out. If you have a saw, you can’t just turn it on. You have to have a key. It is more common in business with lots and lots of employees. Our department is small … but [IOSHA] wants us to act like a big company, but that is all for the good” of safety, Ruble said.

Conley’s wife, Lori Wenzel, a phlebotomist at Terre Haute Medical Lab, has since remarried.

“The amount of violations that they had just shocked me,” she said. “That is when I really started working with OSHA pushing as much as I could to force them to make it safer for the rest of the guys. I didn’t want some other wife to get a phone call from Keith Ruble that her husband had died.

“Instead of talking to my manager and asking to meet somewhere, he just told me over the phone,” Wenzel recalls. “It’s a shame Kenneth had to die to make things safer, but at least his dying did some good” forcing more safety requirements.

Conley was a former member of the Wabash Valley Blacksmith Association. On Saturday, the association unveiled a sign made in honor of Conley. The sign is located inside the blacksmith shop at Fowler Park, in an area where Conley had worked.

“He started doing that for Pioneer Days when working for the Parks Department because a blacksmith didn’t show up. He enjoyed it and kept doing it,” Wenzel said. “He liked going to the schools showing the kids how to bend metal. He became very talented at what he did. I still have a lot of his stuff, so does my daughter. We cherish it because we will never get that again.”

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.