3 killed when scaffold falls
RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina’s workplace safety agency is leading an investigation into why a scaffold with several men on it broke free from the facade of a high-rise construction project and killed three workers.
The State Department of Labor is receiving help from Raleigh’s police and fire departments as it interviews dozens of workers at the Charter Square building under construction in downtown Raleigh.
The equipment known as a mast climber scaffold moves up and down a building’s facade to take workers to different floors. One of the tracks had snapped off several stories up Monday and fell into a twisted heap on the ground below.
“We just had a mast climber fall off. There were men on it,” a 911 caller said, estimating the men fell 200 feet.
The operator asked if the victims were awake, to which the caller responded: “No, they’re dead.”
Jeffrey Hammerstein, community outreach chief for Wake County EMS, said three men died and a fourth was seriously injured in the accident and that all four were involved in the construction project.
Police identified the dead men as Jose Erasmo Hernandez, 41, of Durham; Jose Luis Lopez-Ramirez, 33, of Clinton; and Anderson Almeida, 33, of Durham.
A fourth man, Elmer Guevara, 53, was taken to WakeMed hospital, authorities said. The hospital said he was in fair condition.
The accident happened as subcontractor Associated Scaffolding was in the process of dismantling the scaffold on the building’s exterior, said Mike Hampton, the chief operating officer for the building’s general contractor, Choate Construction Company.
“We are finished using it. They actually were dismantling that piece when it happened,” Hampton said. “It wasn’t as if it was business as usual; they went to work and it collapsed.”
Occupational Safety and Health Administration records show Associated Scaffolding was issued serious safety violations twice in North Carolina in the past 10 years.
