We first reported back in January about a freak accident involving a Sanitation Worker who was killed after the truck that he was working on crushed him. The Sanitation Worker’s mother is speaking out and the business that operated that truck was just fined by a Federal agency.
“It was straight out of a movie.” That’s how the mother of a Sanitation Worker that died on the job described learning about the incident. Nearly six months later, she says it has not gotten easier. On January 17th, 38-year-old Nathen Kerstetter was on the back of a Newman Hill garbage truck and along the Route in Port Matilda, the driver that State Police identify as Dennis Butler backed into a tree. Kerstetter was pronounced dead at the scene with blunt force trauma to the head.
His mother Kelly says when she was told about the incident, she didn’t believe what Authorities were saying could be true. Kelly Kerstetter saying: “I had just been talking to my son the day before and then he’s gone the next day and then the next day I was planning his funeral. The emotions were raw. The emotions are still raw. It doesn’t get better. I have my bad days and my not so bad days. I cried for hours last night so it’s really not gotten any easier.”
She says Newman Hill garbage trucks going by her home weekly hasn’t made the healing process easier. Kerstetter adding: “Those sightings and seeing them here are not going to go away for a long time. That’s a hard thing for me to go through every week.”
Now the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, is fining Newman Hill just over $16,000 following a crash report citing the truck driver for careless backing onto a roadway. Kerstetter saying: “Do I think $16,000 is enough? No, but is any amount of money enough? You can’t put a price tag on your child’s head and no amount of money is going to bring him back.”
We’ve reached out for comment from Newman Hill for comment, but have not heard back.