LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The girlfriend of a Ford Motor Co. maintenance worker who died after an accident at the Kentucky Truck Plant says he was cutting a steel joist with a torch when the joist fell on his head and neck.

Rhonda Scott told The Courier-Journal on Sunday that her boyfriend, 54-year-old Ronald S. Cassady of Louisville, had been a lifelong millwright.

Deputy Jefferson County Coroner Jim Wesley said Cassady was pronounced dead Saturday morning at University Hospital of multiple blunt force injuries.

The Kentucky Truck Plant, which employs more than 4,000 workers, makes the Ford F250-F550, Super Duty, Lincoln Navigator, and the Expedition, according to the Ford Web site.

Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans said the plant was down for maintenance and construction at the time of the accident, which she said is under investigation by the company and the workers' union, United Auto Workers Local 862.

Evans said Cassady was a 16-year veteran of the plant, which is one of two Ford factories in Louisville.

Former UAW Local 862 President Lewis Sexton said the on-the-job death was the first for a UAW worker at either of Louisville's two Ford factories since the mid-1970s.

Dick Brown, a spokesman for the Kentucky Labor Cabinet, said a state occupational safety and health inspector went to the truck plant Sunday to investigate.