A sad day for the Alcoa family as the company investigates what happened in Monday night's deadly accident.
A company rep tells TV6 the man was seriously injured around 8 pm, and pronounced dead within the hour.
"I think myself and everyone at Alcoa feels a sense of loss today," Alcoa Spokesperson John Riches says.
Grief counselors were brought in today to help co-workers deal with the loss. Employees coming into work for their shifts this morning were told what happened.
The incident has many asking KWQC what happened. TV6 got calls and Facebook posts, and went to the company for answers.
"What we did last night is we did shut the entire plant down for a period of time, the department where the accident took place was shut down for the rest of the shift," Riches says.
He says employees were back to work around 1 am, but workers are being kept away from the area where the incident happened.
"That's been shut down and blocked off until we complete our investigation," Riches says, "I believe OSHA will be here later today or tomorrow to conduct their own investigation."
He says the man killed was a relatively new employee. A union rep from the United Steelworkers tells KWQC the man was a mechanic and a probationary employee. The rep says all workers are required to get some experience with all the different jobs and shifts in the company and complete 700 hours of work during their probationary period.
"At some point after we finish the investigation there may be some additional information we'll be able to release," Riches says.
The company is investigating to try and make sure this doesn't happen again, and say it's providing support where possible for employees.
"It's a somber feeling," Riches says, "I guess what I would say the focus of today is on the family; they've lost a husband, a father, a son, and they're grieving, and so are the people that knew this gentleman."
Alcoa reps say they will not be releasing the man's name. The company has had at least 11 safety complaints, three fatalities and three amputations in over two decades.
Reps with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration say an accident history like this is not unusually high for a company as big as Alcoa.
The last deadly accident at the Alcoa plant was back in August of 2000.
