Alex Paxton died tragically in a preventable accident at the Oliver Dam. Thanks to the personal injury lawyers at Butler Kahn, his family reached a confidential settlement with Georgia Power.
Alex Paxton's life was cut short due to negligence by the Georgia Power Company, the owner and operator of the dam where the accident occurred. Thanks to a team of Atlanta-based personal injury and wrongful death attorneys, Paxton's family got the compensation they deserved.
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Commercial diver Alex Paxton died tragically while working inside the Oliver Dam on the Chattahoochee River in Columbus, Georgia. The Georgia Power Company settled with Paxton's family after admitting his death resulted from its failure to follow Lockout-Tagout procedures.
Lockout-Tagout (LOTO) procedures refer to practices and procedures for securing machines and equipment while maintenance and repairs are performed. These processes are designed to protect workers by ensuring that all potential sources of hazardous energy are locked and tagged out, keeping them in a zero-energy state until safe to re-engage.
Unfortunately, in the case handled by Butler Kahn, Georgia Power failed to take the necessary precautions, with tragic results. The company left a valve open - despite communicating to the dive team that all valves were closed, locked, and tagged out.
Subsequently, when Alex Paxton descended into the Oliver Dam, his arm was sucked into a pipe with 850 pounds of force, resulting in his death by suffocation.
According to a spokesperson for Butler Kahn, "The force from the differential pressure was so great that, after a few minutes, Alex could no longer inflate his chest to breathe."
The accident occurred on October 27, 2020, during an exploratory dive scheduled by Georgia Power to search for suspected damage to an underwater chain.
Before beginning the exploratory dive, the Butler Kahn legal team determined that Georgia Power conducted a safety meeting with Alex's dive team. During this meeting, the company showed the team documentation mistakenly indicating the LOTO procedures were active.
The team trusted Georgia Power and assumed it was safe to begin work without risk of exposure to hazardous sources of energy. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case.
On behalf of the victim's family, Butler Kahn produced extensive expert testimony and an affidavit from a former Georgia Power employee proving serious mistakes made in connection with Paxton's death. Given the strong evidence against their client, Georgia Power's attorneys pushed for mediation, leading the parties to reach a confidential settlement.
The case was handled by attorneys Jeb Butler and Tom, with assistance from Matt Kahn. Naveen Ramachandrappa of Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore also provided support on certain legal issues.
What happened to Alex Paxton should never happen to anyone - anywhere. Unfortunately, sometimes companies fail to adequately protect their workers from harm.
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