The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating after a workplace accident left a worker dead in a quarry near Sullivan City, according to Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra.

The sheriff’s office and other law enforcement agencies were dispatched to the area of U.S. Expressway 83 on Vanderpool Road at around 8 a.m. Saturday in response to an operator getting trapped in an excavator that was in a sedimentary pond, Guerra said.

The body of the unidentified operator in his 40s was pulled out of the pond Saturday afternoon.

“Where the excavator was, the soil around it did not collapse,” Guerra said. “It appears that the excavator drove into the pond."

Guerra said any information gathered by investigators will be used by OSHA in their federal investigation.