SPRINGFIELD, N.H. — Safety officials are investigating the circumstances involving a 51-year-old man who was found deceased after he had been pinned under a dump bed in the early morning hours last Friday at a lumber mill in Springfield.

The man, whose identity has not been released, was an employee of Durgin and Crowell Lumber Co. Emergency responders were dispatched to the business at 3:14 a.m. on Friday for a report of a “CPR in progress” at the mill’s facility on Fisher Corner Road, according to a news release from Springfield Fire and Rescue.

“The patient was evaluated and lifesaving efforts were ceased after it was determined that (the man) expired several hours before he was found” and was subsequently pronounced dead at the scene, the news release said.

Springfield Fire and Rescue remained present until units from New Hampshire State Police Troop C out of Keene arrived.

A state police spokesman said via email on Monday that troopers determined “there was no criminal aspect” and the incident “appears to be an industrial accident and was referred to” the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

OSHA officials have visited Durgin and Crowell and opened an inspection to determine if the incident involved any violations of workplace safety standards, a Department of Labor spokesman in Boston said via email on Monday.

OSHA has up to six months to complete an investigation but does not comment while an investigation is open, the spokesman added.

Ben Crowell, owner and vice president of Durgin Crowell, said the man had been employed by the company for two years and worked in the maintenance department but declined to identify the individual “out of respect for the family.”

Crowell described the incident “as a sad, tragic accident.”

The dump bed under which the employee was found was a Kubota RTV utility vehicle, or side-by-side, “a small vehicle that our maintenance crew uses to get around,” Crowell said.

The vehicle, similar to an ATV, has a small dump bed behind the cab that rises and lowers using a hydraulic lift.

Ian MacMillian, chief of Springfield Fire and Rescue, declined to speculate on how the maintenance worker might have become pinned under the dump bed but said that the man’s body “had been removed prior to us arriving on scene.”

“There were lifesaving efforts going on at the time we arrived and after doing some evaluation it was determined that (the man) had been deceased for several hours,” MacMillian said.

Durgin and Crowell, a family-run business off Interstate 89 in Springfield, was the site of a massive four-alarm fire in 2018 that destroyed its 230,000-square-foot planer mill and involved firefighters responding from 20 towns. 

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.