A Vernon police investigation aligns with a ruling from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA): last summer's death of a construction worker in a collapsed trench should have been prevented. As a result, two of victim Dennis Slater's co-workers are now charged with manslaughter.
Slater, 56, died last July 22 when an eight-foot-deep trench collapsed on him at a Vernon housing development, Laurelwood Farms.
Last month, OSHA fined Botticello, Inc. of Manchester $375,000 for unsafe conditions, saying "This deadly cave-in and the worker's death should never have happened." The agency says the company failed to use a "trench box" or other protective system to reinforce the trench, failed to "have a competent person conduct inspections" and failed to ensure workers had a way to get out safely.
Friday, the Vernon Police Dept. charged company owner Dennis Botticello and Glen Locke, who was working an excavator at the site, with first degree manslaughter and first degree reckless endangerment. Both men were being held on $50,000 bail, with a court date set for Monday.
"Sometimes it's just not an accident. This could have been prevented," says Vernon Police Lt. Robert Marra. "There's many ways that they could have done this. They could have made a 45-degree angle (to ensure against collapse). They could have used trench boxes. They failed to do that."
According to a warrant for his arrest, Locke told a police officer on the scene that the trench Slater was working in had collapsed twice earlier that day. Asked if the company uses trench boxes to prevent a collapse, Locke said, "yes in some certain applications we do but the banks were holding up fine here I guess we play the odds."
