Washington state officials investigating fatal demolition accident

A 52-year-old man working on a demolition job was fatally crushed beneath a steel beam in Blaine, Washington on June 8, according to the Associated Press. Washington state officials are investigating the cause. An article in the Bellingham Herald, James Loyd Bost was helping to scrap a cyclone air separator when the accident occurred. The 30-foot-tall piece of machinery is an industrial-sized filter for dust and other small particles in the air. Four steel beams formed a square to support it, the newspaper report states.

Police say two beams buckled under the separator and knocked the other two outward. One of the beams fell onto Bost. The county medical examiner says the man died at the scene. State Department of Labor and Industries investigators are trying to determine the cause of the accident.