On Mon, 02 Apr 2001 14:42:02 -0700, Chris Leithiser <cynleeone@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Perry Scott wrote:
>Does anyone else feel this cascade is in extremely poor taste? They
>killed the poor woman, after all.
How about I put it back on a serious level? In fact, if they can show these speculations are not close enough to what happened, I expect scientology, in the person of Kendrick Moxon, or some other stand in, to sue me--again.

Stacy and at least one unknown person went to the vault that Sunday morning because a new "handling ground squirrels in the transformer vaults" order had been handed down recently. Perhaps the order had come down all the way from DM. (It came out after the typical 3 week time for problem--knocked out power due to squirrel in the vaull--to go up and orders on how to handle to come down.) Stacy was to go down into the vault far enough to check that no ground squirrels were in there and/or check that the screens over the air vents were in place.

They pulled off the manhole lid and dropped a wooden stepladder into the hole. Stacy was to go down the ladder far enough to check, but most likely not to the bottom. She was picked because she was agile, and being small, less likely to get into the wires.

The ladder could not be centered under the manhole, but was off toward the corner away from the row of three transformers and the single one.

It could not be opened on the surface because the ladder base was bigger than the manhole opening. They dangled the ladder in the vault and managed to open it part way by dragging one set of legs.

Stacy started down into the vault on the ladder, but because she *was* small and for her it was a big step to the top of the ladder, because the ladder was not fully open, and because the ladder wasn't centered, her climbing onto it tipped it over into the row of three transformers, and she fell off. Her kicking back as she fell and her foot landing on the bottom step righted the ladder while she tried to stop her fall by grabbing one of the hot wires connecting the transformers together. (The wire was connected to insulators which stuck up at least a foot from the transformers or three feet off the floor.)

She was instantly killed. Because the fuses were not sensitive enough to blow, Stacy cooked on the wires for quite a few minutes before someone (in the worst sort of panic) turned the current off. (It is interesting that a squirrel blew the fuses three weeks previous, but the much larger current flowing through Stacy did not--perhaps the fuses had been changed to higher current ones. It is just possible she would have lived if the fuses had been sensitive enough.) It should be noted as evidence that the first people interviewed by OSHA knew *exactly* who was dead in the vault--because one or more of these people or people they knew, had sent her to her death.

*And* someone *wrote* he policy/orders which required entering the vault and visually inspecting it for squirrels without turning off power, or perhaps the policy *did* require turning off power and someone forgot or didn't know how to do it, or perhaps whoever it was turned off the wrong switch, or even that they feared the lost "production" if they interrupted the power. I bet the conversation with Stacy reported the previous day about methods to get into the vault and what ladder to use really happened, when they were discussing how to do this recently required chore.

I am virtually certain Stacy was not put in the vault as punishment, nor did she enter the vault on her own. From what evidence we have, she was a *good* worker clam, and would not get into trouble which would get her RPFed, nor would she do something like this on her own (which certainly would have gotten her RPFed if she had been seen by the guards entering or leaving the vault).

So, what was given to the OSHA and Deputy Tony Greer was a "shore story" made up of elements which were true and some which were not.

The critical thing is that this was not an "off duty" accident, they lied about that, but one where Stacy was working under someone's close direction, the first task for her that day. (She was killed about 15 minutes after her shift started, just enough time to open the vault and place the ladder.) These people were carrying out insane orders, of course, but that is normal for the sea org (and is not unknown with regular military orders). Her death was as "accidental" as that of Ashlee Shaner's, and like that death, her death the direct result of L.Ron Hubbard's infectious insanity getting in the way of common sense or concerns about safety.

Ok, sue me.

Keith Henson

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