Wacker site construction in Bradley County
The Tennessee Department of Labor has sent investigators to the Wacker Chemical construction site in Charleston, Tenn., to piece together how two workers fell from scaffolding Wednesday night and died.
Construction on the $2 billion polysilicon plant was halted indefinitely after the deaths, said William Toth, director of corporate communications at Wacker.
Depending on what Wacker and the Department of Labor find, the 1,200 daily subcontract workers could returns days from now or months, he said.
“The suddenness of it sends a shock through an entire organization,” he said Friday. “It is a very sad situation. We certainly mourn their loss. We want to take this (time) and realize the sadness of the event and move forward.”
Hugo Mendoza, 45, of Buford, Ga., and Luis Ochoa, 31, of Hollywood, Fla., were employees of Baker Concrete Construction. Baker, which operates in several states, has been inspected 19 times in the last five years, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Agency website. Thirteen violations were found and three of them were serious, according to OSHA.