Lives Come Cheap on the Farm

This seems like kind of a low price to pay for killing someone in a confined space. I'm sure his family must feel much better now.

A Sioux Center, Iowa, farm has paid $1,125 in fines for violations connected to an employee's death this summer.

The Iowa Occupational Safety and Health agency found that Bar-K Farms did not report the death of 31-year-old Kenneth Van Wyk of Ireton, Iowa, to IOSH within eight hours. Bar-K was fined $750.

IOSH also fined Bar-K $375 for failure to study the potential hazard associated with or conduct training for working within a confined space.

Van Wyk died July 18 while repairing a steel 11,000-gallon liquid storage tank at Bar-K's Carmel, Iowa, location. Van Wyk was inside the tank and suffocated because of a lack of oxygen.