BURNS HARBOR, Ind. (AP) - A steel plant employee was struck in the head by a steel girder and killed at the ArcelorMittal plant in Burns Harbor.

Porter County Coroner Victoria Deppe says 60-year-old Russell Payne of Portage died at the scene Wendesday morning of blunt force trauma to the head.

United Steelworkers Local 6787 President Paul Gipson says Payne
was crushed by a steel girder when a crane holding heavy chains got
caught on the girder and rolled it on top of Payne.

Gipson noted Payne's death during a rally Wednesday for Democratic Presdiential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)