Worker at Chevron Crushed to Death

A maintenance worker at the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo was crushed to death Monday when a 13-ton bundle of steel pipes shifted and pinned him against a wall, a refinery spokesman said Tuesday.

Michael J. McKenna, 26, was treated for massive internal injuries by paramedics but was dead on arrival at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center at 8:55 a.m., according to the hospital.

McKenna was attaching a rigging from a crane to the bundle of 15-foot pipes when it suddenly shifted, said Rod Spackman of Chevron. McKenna was preparing the three-foot diameter bundle to be hoisted onto a truck so it could be taken to a storage yard.

Spackman said the same procedure is followed dozens of times a year without mishap. The state Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident.

McKenna, a Hermosa Beach resident, had worked at the refinery since June. No other employee has been killed at the refinery in the last three years, though a contract worker died in a truck fire in 1985, Spackman said.