Rolled truck kills worker

A Huntington Beach man was killed Wednesday morning when a truck he was working on rolled on top of him outside his Costa Mesa business, the county coroner said.

Alvin Gerk, 30, was found dead underneath a pickup truck outside of his business, AG Mobile, 833 W. 17th St., at about 6:50 a.m. Wednesday. AG Mobile is a service company for large, industrial trucks, said officials from the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which is considering investigating the incident.

Investigators said Gerk was underneath the truck, trying to put the transmission in gear, when it rolled on top of him. One man at the business who called Gerk a friend said it was a preventable accident.

“It could have been as simple as applying the parking brake,” said Dean Fryer, a Cal/OSHA spokesman.

The Orange County Sheriff-Coroner’s office will investigate the incident, said Costa Mesa police officials.

Cal/OSHA is determining if the case is in its jurisdiction. If Gerk is the sole employee at AG Mobile, or if his other employees do not work on the vehicles, the department may not have jurisdiction to investigate, Fryer said.

“[This] is not an uncommon occurrence. It’s not real frequent, but we do see it,” Fryer said.