A construction worker in his 40s died yesterday at a demolition site in Seattle. The man’s death occurred at the soon-to-be demolished McGuire apartment building in the city’s Belltown district. The building had been marked for demolition due to its unsafe construction.
Paramedics were called to the 25-storey building at around 10.15am, but to no avail. The worker had suffered a severe neck trauma, and an attempt to revive him with CPR after he had been lowered from the 22nd floor by crane tragically failed.
At the time of writing, the cause of the man’s death is unclear. While early reports suggested he had fallen, this explanation has now been ruled out of ongoing investigations.
“It appears that he drove into debris and hit a piece of rebar, suffering the fatal injury,” said Hector Castro, a spokesman for the Department of Labor and Industries. “There does appear to be pieces of rebar protruding from different areas. It is a demolition site.”
The man, as yet unnamed, was employed with LVI Services, a New York-based demolitions firm who have helped demolish such buildings as the 40-storey Deutsche Bank Building in Lower Manhattan, a building that was damaged beyond repair in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Castro went on to add that the man’s death is the 32nd work-related fatailty in Washington state this year – of that number, four have occurred within the construction industry. Our thoughts and wishes go to the man’s family.
