Seven D.I. Dawn Patrol employees die in Bataan road accident
One week after Black Diamond Equipment staff and Dong In Entech Co. factory employees celebrated the grand opening of its new Philippine-based factory, D.I. Dawn Patrol, seven members of the newly established factory’s management and administrative staff were killed in a car accident.
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One week after Black Diamond Equipment staff and Dong In Entech Co. factory
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IS Jung, right, CEO and founder of Dong In Entech, celebrates the grand opening of his new factory with Mark Ritchie, Black Diamond’s vice president of operations, just one week before Jung would be mourning the death of seven of his key employees. |
employees celebrated the grand opening of its new Philippine-based factory, D.I. Dawn Patrol, seven members of the newly established factory’s management and administrative staff were killed in a car accident.
According to news reports, the seven were driving home from work on the Bataan Highway just before midnight on March 9. They were in a company van that attempted to pass a three-wheeled bike. The van driver apparently did not see an oncoming passenger bus and collided with it head-on.
Dead are: Sung Ki (SK) Jo, Won Kyu (Warren) Shin, Daisy Hermoso, Rose Hermoso, Eimee Balingit, Michelle Dulatre and Armie Dioniscio. All were, according to IS Jung, CEO, president and founder of Dong In, key members of the new D.I. Dawn Patrol factory and most of them had worked with Black Diamond for a very long time.
Dong In employs approximately 5,000 workers in its factories in the Bataan Economic Zone, and manufactures backpacks and harnesses for Black Diamond, as well as bags and equipment for many other outdoor industry companies, including CamelBak, Kelty, Gregory and Arc’Teryx, to name a few.
The new factory had been constructed by Dong In exclusively for Black Diamond operations.
Peter Metcalf, president of Black Diamond, told SNEWS®, “All of us at Black Diamond are at a loss for words and are challenged in our grief to actually believe that these seven wonderful people, who many of us were with just last week celebrating the opening of our new factory — an event filled with promise, birth, the potential of what can be and a future of unimagined opportunity — are now gone. It is more than cruel; it is a deep loss of horrific proportions.”
–Michael Hodgson
