Medical Examiner Names Victim of Industrial Accident

Monday, April 11 at 8:30 a.m.

The King County Medical Examiner's office named the 25-year-old woman who was killed in an industrial accident Thursday evening as Sharon Silva. The cause of death is still pending. More information  will be posted as it becomes available.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Washington State Labor and Industries is investigating the death of a 25-year-old Renton woman who was at Smurfit-Stone Recycling in Renton.

The investigation is expected to take as long as six months.

Although the facility does not have previous machinery violations, Labor and Industries inspectors fined the company earlier this year for a serious health violation, said spokesperson Elanie Fischer.

Smurfit-Stone Recycling received a $300 fine for not providing Hepatitis B vaccinations to employees who may be exposed to needles during sorting and handling of recyclables, she said. The facility also had two general violations. One was for a lack of dust monitoring, which could become a respiratory hazard to employees, and another for failing to have a written plan to control employee exposure to blood-borne pathogens in the workplace. Neither general violation resulted in a fine.

Labor and Industries also inspected the Renton facility in 2007 for possible health violations, but did not find any.

Lisa Esneault, director of communications for  Smurfit-Stone, said the company will fully cooperate with the investigation.

"We're just extremely saddened," she said. "Our thoughts and condolences go out to the family."

Renton Police and Renton Fire and Emergency Services responded to the facility, located in the 700 block of Southwest 34th Street, off of Lind Avenue Southwest, shortly before 10 p.m. Thursday.

"On arrival, they found a 25-year-old Renton woman, an employee of the business there, trapped under a large quantity of material in an industrial machine," wrote Detective Robert Onishi in a statement released this morning.

The first responders shut off the machine and the power, and extracted the woman from the equipment."Despite efforts of other employees, Police, and Fire, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene," according to Onishi.

The King County Medical Examiner is performing an autopsy and is expected to release the woman's name and the cause and manner of death this afternoon.