ROCK SLIDE KILLS MAN AT QUARRY

A Scott City man was killed in Lone Star Industries' quarry late Saturday afternoon when a 50-foot section of rock collapsed onto the tract excavator he was operating.

The accident that took the life of Carl Dean Howell Jr., 40, wasn't discovered until Sunday morning when a friend who was a coworker went to the limestone quarry searching for him, according to Cape Girardeau police. Howell's family became concerned when he did not return Saturday night and asked Don Wright to look for him.

Dennis Dobson, a technical manager at Lone Star, said Howell was an independent contractor who was working by himself Saturday afternoon after Lone Star's regular workers finished for the day a little after noon.

Howell, owner of Howell Trucking Co., was using the excavator to remove rock from a path Lone Star's vehicles use to get in and out of the quarry, Dobson said.

"He was exactly in the middle of the column when it fell. If he had been a couple of feet further up it would have missed him," Dobson said.

The section of wall toppled over onto the excavator, crushing the cab and ripping it from the base of the machine. Howell was found in the rubble. Cape Girardeau County Coroner John Carpenter pronounced him dead at the scene at 1:15 p.m. Sunday.

Carpenter said 300 to 400 tons of rock fell on the vehicle. Howell's body was found still in his seat inside the cab. The body was removed at 5 p.m. Sunday after extensive work by Cape Girardeau fire and rescue personnel and Lone Star employees using heavy equipment, he said.

Dobson said he was notified of the accident a little past noon Sunday and was told that Wright found the wrecked excavator around 11:30 a.m.

This was the first fatality at Lone Star since Maxel Dale Tatum was killed in a machinery accident in October 1994.