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An unidentified female dockworker at the busy Port of Oakland, CA, who had just finished her night shift and was leaving the dock, was run over and lost both of her legs, reports say. The accident occurred while the shifts were changing at the same time heavy machinery used to hoist the shipping containers and move them around the docks also were also moving around, reports say. The Ports America company, which apparently reconfigured the terminal in January 2010 with…

As they tried to escape a deep, water-filled hole at a Queens, NY waste transfer plant, three workers were killed as they were overcome by hydrogen sulfide fumes. The victims, including a father and son who worked for S. Dahan Sewer Specialists, were at the scene working with a vacuum truck to suck water from a dry well that was meant to collect water runoff. Harel Dahan, 23, of Brooklyn, somehow fell into the well and his father, Shlomo Dahan,…

Chad Elgert, 35, a North Sioux City Speedy Rooter sewer company employee, remains in critical condition at a local hospital after he tried to rescue another worker in the same sewer. Elgert had been called to fix a clogged sewer in a one-block stretch of Souix City, IA recently when his co-worker, Robert Thompson, 54, fell into unconscious from the gasses in the sewer. Elgert then descended into the manhole to try to rescue Thompson, but he was also overtaken…

The Centers for Disease Control is monitoring the large outbreak of E. Coli that has hit European communities this spring. The E. Coli strain, which is a Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O104:H4 infection mosty discovered in Germany, has been confirmed in four cases and one suspected case in the U.S. Of the five cases, four recently traveled to Hamburg, Germany, where they were likely exposed. The CDC has reported an alert to state health departments of the ongoing outbreak and…

The Center for Disease Control reported a collaboration with public health officials in several states, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, to investigate a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Hadar infections. The investigation has been linked to eating turkey burgers — although investigators were not able to determine consumption of turkey burgers for all patients. FSIS officials determined that at least three of the case-patients in Colorado, Ohio, and Wisconsin reported eating Jennie-O Turkey…