Date Posted
Good morning, I thank each and every one of you for being here today. My name is Pete Gereg, and I’m proud and happy to be with all of you here today working for Frontier Communications.
Let’s use this 26th anniversary of a tragic accident to focus on, think about, but most importantly practice safety.
Let me take you back 26 years ago to what I thought was going to be just another routine day of work here at SNET, June 28, 1989.
Pete Gereg gets up at 5:30 am and turns on the radio—and to his surprise, learns that two SNET employees died last night in a tragic work related accident! No names yet.
I could not believe it, could this be true? What happened? Who was involved? Danbury? SNET? I must know these two men! Who could they be?
Well it didn’t take me long to figure it out. As I raced to the garage and got there early, I noticed a pick-up truck in the back parking lot with dew on the windshield. I knew the truck had been left there overnight, and belonged to Joe DePanfiles.
Could he be one of the accident victims?
Sadly, I was to later find out that yes the young man who started the same day as I did in the Cable Department was gone. Joe had died in a manhole accident the night before –my heart sank.
Pulling into the front parking lot, I noticed another vehicle whose windows were fogged and that vehicle belonged to Ronnie Espitee.
Could he be the second victim? Again, sadly, I was to later find out that Ronnie had also perished in the accident.
How could this happen? How could someone get killed entering a manhole?
Many of us had entered manholes hundreds if not thousands of times!
In the days that followed, we heard presentations from company officials, union officials, and read daily articles in the newspaper.
Then came two wakes, two funerals, and two burials at St Peter’s Cemetery here in Danbury.
Time, as always marched on---the two anniversaries of the accident came and went, one year, two years, five years, ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five years which brings us here today, Twenty-six out.
How can we learn from this terrible tragedy?
How do we make sure it never happens again?—and the answer is practice safety all the time at work and at home. You see safety is not limited to manholes. For example, take driving, unlike most workers, we drive to work and at work all day. Try to take right hand turns when possible, take a route that utilizes a traffic light to safely enter an intersection. How about ladders? Sheath knives, electrical hazards, poison ivy, insects, and on and on, and on!
See when you think about it, our job can be an easy place to get hurt! Remember, extend safety awareness to your time at home, off the job, even on vacation!
Dick McGrath, union business agent in 1989 spoke at the first anniversary of the accident at a church in Ridgefield and said (quote) “These two men died so that we will not”. We’ll always be very careful when entering manholes. First purge and ventilate.
Let us use this anniversary to remind us to focus upon and practice safety—Everyday, everywhere.
In closing, I’d like to go off script for a few minutes with a few t thoughts of my own.
You know what I saw here the other day, I saw a young employee pick up a piece of trash in the parking lot on his way into the garage and dispose of it in a garbage can inside the garage. I don’t remember seeing that when AT&T was here. –are we in a better place now than we were this time last year? I think so!
Let’s not misconstrue our articles of speech with our pronouns—It’s not the union, and they’re not the customers. It’s my company, my union, and they’re my customers!
Take ownership of this organization, give your input as to where you think it should go and how it should grow—It’s your future!, and by the way, pick up that piece of trash on your way into the barn like the young guy did.
Finally, there are many people as well as a couple of organizations who made today possible and I’d like to say “thank you” to them.
Thank you Frontier Communications for allowing us to assemble here today. Thank you, Jerry Fritch and Greg Wetmore for providing coffee and bagels. Thank you CWA Local 1298 for purchasing some flowers and a small tree.
Thanks to Mark Crowley, Ron Richards, and Jeff Zitnay for weeding and cleaning up our memorial garden.
Now please, in order for some of you young people out there to have a “hands on” connection to this memorial, please help me plant a small tree, and some flowers.
Thank you all very much!! For More Photos Click Here
