Industrial accident at Georgetown autoparts manufacturer leaves one dead
A contractor conducting machine maintenance at a factory in Georgetown died in an industrial accident early Saturday morning, Scott County Coroner Mark Sutton told the Herald-Leader.
The incident happened around 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning at International Crankshaft, an autoparts manufacturer near downtown Georgetown. Sutton identified the deceased as 35-year-old Richard Thurmond, of Elizabethtown.
The company bills itself as “the leading crankshaft forger in North America.” Crankshafts are the part of a vehicle’s engine that converts the up-and-down motion of the pistons into spinning motion that powers the wheels.
In 2017, the Georgetown News-Graphic reported the company had made 32 million crankshafts, including those for the popular mid-size Toyota Camry automobile manufactured at the massive Toyota plant in Georgetown. The company is owned by Nippon Steel, the largest steelmaker in Japan and second-largest in the world.
Sutton added that the Georgetown Police Department and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating the incident.