Grandfather Dies After Falling Into Vat of Sulfuric Acid at Work: He Was 'Treasured and Loved'
A 54-year-old Michigan man died hours after he fell into a large tank of sulfuric acid at a manufacturing plant on Saturday.
It is unclear how long Daniel Hill was in the vat, or how he ended up there, but his coworkers at Michigan Seamless Tube suffered at least 160-degree chemical burns when they pulled the fully submerged man from the tank around 12:20 p.m., according to The Detroit News.
“Other employees, co-workers saw him in the tank,” South Lyon Fire Chief Robert Vogel told the publication. “He was completely submerged and was 100 percent covered in burns. The gentleman was trying to get out. They ran and grabbed him and pulled him out.”
“He was speaking when we were there,” Vogel continued. “He was walking and talking. Unfortunately, he passed. It was pretty extreme burns.”
Employees pulled him from the vat and took him to a decontamination area as medics and police rushed to the scene, according to The Detroit Free Press. He was then taken to University of Michigan Hospital where he died that night.
“This really is a tragedy and affects all of us,” South Lyon Police Chief Chris Sovik said, according to the Free Press.
Officials with the company said they are investigating the “serious industrial accident,” according to a statement through the fire department.
He leaves behind a wife, two daughters and two grandchildren. Friends have set up a GoFundMe page to benefit the family. One person remembered Hill in a Facebook post, describing the incident as a “sudden tragedy.
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“This was a very treasured and loved man,” the Facebook user wrote. “I was lucky to work side by side with him and get to know what a wonderful person he was.”
One of Hill’s neighbors, Stephen Kobylarz , told the Free Press that Hill and his family had recently moved to South Lyon from Whitmore Lake in July,
“They are just very nice people, quiet,” Kobylarz said. “They just loved their new house and the countryside, the wildlife, the deer. They mentioned they’d seen a coyote. They are just very, very nice people. It was really a shock when I heard about it.”
