DuPage Water Commission employee dies week after Villa Park workplace accident

A DuPage County employee was killed in a workplace accident earlier this month in west suburban Villa Park.

Rocky Ellingsworth, 59, suffered a “traumatic injury” at 12:09 p.m. on Feb. 8 when a portable directional board hit him on the head in the 200 block of East Roosevelt Road, according to Villa Park police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Ellingsworth, who lived in Carol Stream, was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead at 10:53 a.m. on Saturday, the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy found he died from complications of his injuries and his death was ruled an accident.

Police said he worked for the DuPage County Water Commission and referred to his injury as a “workplace incident.” The Illinois Department of Labor’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration was called to investigate.

“To lose an employee who was so well regarded, while he was working to serve the customers of the DuPage Water Commission, is a stunning blow to our close-knit board and employee family,” DPWC Chairman Jim Zay wrote in a statement.

Zay said Ellingsworth’s death “was the result of what appears to be a piece of equipment malfunctioning” and that the commission is “doing everything we can to help determine the cause of this accident.”

An Illinois OSHA spokesman confirmed the agency is investigating the incident but did not provide further details.