Fatal industrial accident

A 54-year-old man was killed in an apparent industrial accident after falling into an empty crude oil tank while cleaning it Tuesday afternoon at Hollice Clark Truck Fabrication, Ector County sheriff Sgt. Gary Duesler said at the scene.

Sheriff and Department of Public Safety officials were withholding the man's name until his family was told of his death.

DPS Trooper James Lujan said the man was working at Hollice Clark, 3010 N.W. Loop 338, using a pressure washer to clean the tank.  He said no one was supervising him at the time.

Duesler said two co-workers noticed that one of the hoses used to clean the tank had come apart, and they didn't see the man around. After a short search, one of them found him inside the vessel.

He was unresponsive.

After they tried but failed to get him out of the tank, they called 9-1-1 at 1:03 p.m. Tuesday.

Firefighters spent more than an hour on top of the tank. Two of them put on breathing apparatus, climbed into the tank, put the man in a body bag and hooked the bag onto a firetruck's ladder to pull him out.

Duesler said the cause of the man's death was not immediately known. Odessa fire battalion chief Kavin Tinney said the tanker carries light crude oil but was empty and clean at the time of the accident.

The manager of Hollice Clark declined to comment.

Another worker, who only identified himself as "Brian," initially said he only heard about it after he got back from a lunch break. When asked whether he knew the man, he said sheriff's investigators told him not to speak about it.

"We don't have very many accidents here at all," the 20-year vet to the company also said.