Sawmill Sees First Fatality in 20 Years

It’s said life begins at 40. Sadly, for Gregory Scott Johnson, it ended at that age when he became caught between two hydraulic cylinders used to pull logs toward a saw at the Suwannee Lumber Co. in Dixie County, FL.

The divorced father of two loved fishing and mechanical work. The accident that claimed his life was not witnessed. He was performing maintenance or repair work on other machinery near the cylinders when he became entrapped.

Johnson had worked at the sawmill for about five years. His death was the first occupational fatality at the mill in nearly 20 years.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, of 5,702 occupational deaths in the United States in 2005, those involving workers becoming trapped in or compressed by equipment or objects numbered 277.