This was updated at 9:01 a.m.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
A 20-year-old worker was killed yesterday in an accident at Hampton’s lumber mill in Morton.
Authorities are investigating.
Sheriff’s detectives were called about 11:15 a.m. to the saw mill on state Route 7 just north of town.
He was working on machinery when he died, and had last been seen on a break between 8 a.m. and 8:30 a.m., Sheriff’s Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said this morning.
Hampton Affiliates, based in Portland, Ore., identified the employee yesterday as Dillan Davis, 20, of Randle.
“No words can express our sorrow to the family of Dillan and his friends throughout the Cowlitz Valley,” Steve Zika, CEO of Hampton Affiliates said in a news release.
The mill has been shut down until further notice, according to Zika.
Investigators from Labor and Industries are looking into the death to determine what happened, according to an agency spokesperson.
“We have begun an investigation, but at the moment all we know is that the worker was found on a conveyor fatally injured,” spokesperson Hector Castro said this morning
Castro said it was his understanding the young man has worked at the mill since October, and was employed at its Randle facility since last year.
An autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon.
The Lewis County mill is among eight owned by Hampton Affiliates in Washington, Oregon and British Columbia.