Widow speaks after losing husband in forklift accident

Alexander

By Shavonne Potts

spotts@salisburypost.com

Mary Ann Neely Alexander received a phone call early on Aug. 27 that forever changed her life. That morning, her husband Maurice left home and never returned.

Maurice, a supervisor at Sonoco Recycling, left their Plymouth Avenue house at 6 a.m. and began work an hour later. By 8 a.m., he was struggling to stay alive.

The 40-year-old lay trapped beneath an 800-pound bale of cardboard. He had been using a forklift to move the bales, and when he jumped down to adjust the machine, one came crashing down on top of him.

“He didn’t see it,” Mary Ann said.

One of Maurice’s co-workers called Mary Ann to tell her Maurice was not breathing.

“I told him to give him CPR,” she said.

The co-worker told Mary Ann she needed to come to the recycling plant. But when she heard an ambulance in the background, she told the man she’d wait for her husband at Rowan Regional Medical Center, where she works.

“They wouldn’t let me see him. They took me to a conference room,” she said.

While Mary Ann waited for news about her husband, Rowan Regional emergency personnel worked to get a pulse. Maurice was taken by ambulance to Presbyterian Healthcare in Charlotte. Mary Ann rode in the front with the driver, unable to communicate in any way with her husband of 14 years.

Maurice remained in a coma after suffering nine broken ribs, crushed lungs and a broken neck.

Maurice Alexander never recovered from his injuries. He died a day after the incident.

Mary Ann isn’t angry at Sonoco. In fact, she said the company has shown deep concern for her family.

“They have been extremely nice in giving us what we needed. They’ve been very supportive,” she said.

Still, she has questions that keep her up at night.

“I just want to know why nobody could see him. Some people should’ve been out there with him at all times,” she said.

Mary Ann said a forklift operator should not operate alone, according to regulations.

She doesn’t even know how long her husband was trapped.

“No one does,” she said.

The Occupational Safety and Health Division of the N.C. Department of Labor continues investigating the accident. Officials have said it could take up to four months to reach a conclusion.

Mary Ann has not returned to work at the hospital and can’t say when she will. “I sleep two or three hours. I just stay up. I try to keep myself busy,” she said.

Together, the couple had four adult children who no longer live at home. They are supportive of her, she said, but the youngest, who is 19, still finds coping difficult.

Maurice and Mary Ann grew up in the same neighborhood and both attended West Rowan High School. They began dating when she was 24. She is now 42.

“Everybody has their spurts of growth. He really changed his life around,” she said.

Maurice was a family man, she said. The couple loved family trips to Myrtle Beach, where they visited at least four times a year.

“All the kids were gone. It was just me, him and the dog,” Mary Ann said with a laugh.

Mary Ann reflected on her husband’s knack for diving into work. At times, he didn’t even take off his work clothes before he began mowing the lawn.

“I don’t have anyone to do that anymore,” Mary Ann said, becoming emotional at the thought.

Without Maurice, Mary Ann takes the days the only way she knows, she said: “hour-by-hour.”

Contact Shavonne Potts at 704-797-4253.