The Associated Press via The Buffalo News
WHITE PLAINS — A village endangered its workers — including two men who suffocated in a manhole — by allowing them to enter dangerous spaces without proper training and equipment, the state Labor Department said Friday.
Tarrytown, 24 miles north of Manhattan, was issued four violations of state safety laws and must repair them or risk $200-a-day fines.
Anthony Ruggiero, 47, of the Tarrytown Public Works Department, and volunteer firefighter John Kelly, 51, were killed by poisonous sewer gas on Labor Day. Ruggiero collapsed after he had gone down a 20-foot manhole to clear a blocked sewer pipe. Kelly went down to rescue him, and he also collapsed.
Neither man had tested the air or worn a breathing mask, as safety protocols would have required, the Labor Department’s report said.
The report said the DPW’s safety program was “left to lapse when the last employee trained on the program retired in 2004.”
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