PORTLAND, Ore - Almost four hours after a man disappeared from a barge along the Willamette River his body was recovered from a chemical holding tank.
Lt. Rich Tyler with Portland Fire and Rescue says that a co-worker had seen the 57-year-old man before 10 a.m. Sunday morning near the hatch of the tank. The man turned away and when he turned back his fellow worker--identified as John Michael Summers
--had vanished.
The Hazmat Team reports they found a rope that led into an open hatch that covered the holding tank that contained about 12 feet of liquid Lignin Amine. Lignin Amine is a corrosive material used in agriculture and Tyler says that the air directly around the liquid had less than one percent oxygen. Compare that to the fresh air in your front yard that has 21 percent oxygen. Tyler says with levels like that it could cause a person to pass out and suffocate.
The employee who called 9-1-1 and was the last to see Summers and also assisted firefighters in draining the tank to recover the body. Firefighters say while the draining of the tank was happening, they were double checking that Summers had not fallen into the river near the Swan Island area or left the work site.
Once the liquid was emptied from the chemical tank on the barge, rescue teams recovered the body.
Firefighters say this was an accident and have turned the investigation over to Oregon Occupational Safety & Health Division (OSHA).
