Janesich had been working alone as he prepared the ground over the pipeline for grass seeding, Kalk said, calling it “a terrible accident.”

Eric Brooks, director of the Bismarck area office of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said an OSHA team was on site Monday investigating the cause of the injury.

“Whenever you have incidents like this, especially when it’s unattended, that seems to be the hardest thing to figure out,” he said.

The GoFundMe page said Janesich’s job had him operating a tractor on a daily basis, and that the extent of his injuries caused him to slip into a coma.

Work had resumed at the site Monday, but the immediate area around the injury site was fenced off to preserve the scene, Kalk said.

The site is about 200 hundred miles northwest of where hundreds of people are protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline’s proposed crossing of the Missouri River near Cannon Ball, just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Reach Mike Nowatzki at (701) 255-5607 or by email at mnowatzki@forumcomm.com.

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