Second longshoreman killed in accident at Phila. port in just over a week

A second longshoreman has been killed in an accident at the Philadelphia port in little more than a week, underscoring the danger waterfront jobs can present.

Vernon Knight, 54, of Philadelphia, fell Saturday from an upper deck while unloading a ship at Tioga Marine Terminal in Port Richmond.

Knight, a member of Local 1291 of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), fell to his death about 1:30 p.m. Saturday while unloading the Rickmers vessel  New Orleans  docked in Port Richmond.

"Unfortunately, he fell from a pontoon in the upper deck of No. 2 hatch to the lower hold while he was giving signals to a crane operator via radio," said Robert Palaima, president of the Delaware River Stevedores.

On Aug. 12, a longshoreman was fatally struck by yard equipment at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.

Carmen "Chuckie" DiRago, 54, a foreman at Packer Avenue, was killed when a "yard horse," the tractor part of a tractor-trailer, backed into him. DiRago, the son of a longshoreman, had worked on the waterfront 36 years and at Packer about 30 years. He was the father of four.

A memorial service was held at 8 a.m. Monday for Knight, a resident of Wynnefield Avenue, at the Tioga terminal before work resumed.

Colleagues said Knight, a longshoreman for about 10 years, was single and had several children. He fell about 40 feet into a lower hold and hit his head.

"We are deeply upset about it and will try to work with our partners in the ILA to be ever more vigilant about safety, because it's a dangerous job, obviously," Palaima said.

"We're not 100 percent sure how it happened," said Martin Mascuilli, secretary-treasurer of Local 1291. "He was an experienced longshoreman, and it's a job that he's done many, many times."

On Saturday, Knight was "tending hatch," assisting the crane operator, who could not see where he was setting cargo on the end of his hook, Mascuilli said. "So you have a person with a walkie-talkie, who is directing the operator, and that was what Vernon was doing.

"Ships are 60 feet to 70 feet deep," Mascuilli said. "He was directing the crane operator, and he may have looked down to see where the cargo was going, so he could give further direction, and he could have lost his balance."

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating both accidents and has up to six months to complete its work, said Joanna P. Hawkins, deputy regional director for public affairs with the U.S. Department of Labor in Philadelphia.

"There have been no fatalities at Philadelphia's port in more than 11 years," Hawkins said. "Over the last 20 years, there were two fatalities prior to the recent ones - one in 1990 and the other in 1999."

According to OSHA, longshoremen die on the job at a rate of five to six per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers.

By comparison, there are 2.2 deaths per 100,000 workers in manufacturing, 9.7 deaths in construction, and 12.1 in transportation/warehousing.

The average rate for all U.S. full-time equivalent workers is 3.3 fatalities per 100,000.

The last fatal accident involving an ILA member occurred five or six years ago, Mascuilli said, when Jimmy Seals was crushed by a cargo container on a Del Monte ship at the South Jersey Port Corp. in Camden.