A mixer operator in a cement roofing tile plant noticed that the sand was not flowing from the bottom of a hopper onto the conveyor belt. A plant laborer was instructed by the operator to enter the top of the hopper to try to clear the blockage by shoveling sand from the edges of the hopper. The blockage collapsed while the laborer was in the hopper. Consequently the sand carried him down to the bottom where he was buried and died from suffocation. A different method of clearing blockages and the use of fall arrest equipment are just two of the possible ways […]