Thomas MacMillan File Photo
The collapsed “rebar cage” that injured two workers.
The day after a Science Park construction accident killed one worker and hospitalized two others, local attorney David Rosen filed suit against a separate construction company involved in a similar catastrophe in town.
“Construction accidents don’t just happen,” Rosen said. They’re the result of “systematic failures to follow well-established safety procedures.”
Such a failure seems to have occurred on Monday in Science Park, where a falling beam killed one worker and severely injured two others.
A similar failure occurred nearly a year ago across town, Rosen said. On Tuesday, he filed a lawsuit against Walsh Construction, alleging that the company’s negligence and recklessness led to the injury of two men working on the Route 34 flyover on Oct. 30, 2009.
Read the complaint here.
Walsh did not return calls for comment.
The injured workers are Fernando Fernandez Sr. and Antonio DeJesus, both in their 40s. They live in the New Haven area, Rosen said. Fernandez’s wife, Jael Morales, is also named as a plaintiff on the case.
Here’s what happened on Oct. 30, 2009, according to the complaint filed Tuesday:
Fernandez and DeJesus, employees of Advance Steel, were working at the corner of Canal Dock Road and Long Wharf Drive as subcontractors for Walsh construction. Walsh was responsible for supervision of the site.
The workers were building a rebar cage, a framework for a concrete support column to be poured. The structure was built of rebar that is more malleable than common reinforcement bar.
In the middle of October, an engineer from another company had visited the site and warned Walsh that the cage was swaying in the wind. The cage was then tied down with cables and concrete blocks. But those cables were shortly removed by Walsh.
“There was no valid reason to remove the safety cables,” the complaint states. “At the time that the safety cables were removed, the defendant knew that doing so made the cage more likely to collapse.”
Walsh could have also placed forms around the cage to make it less susceptible to collapse. This was Advance Steel’s original plan for the project. “However, to save a small amount of money, the defendant ordered Advance Steel and its own employees not to use this safer approach to build the cage but instead to build it without any intermediate support to guard against collapse,” the complaint states.
At about 9:50 a.m., DeJesus was on scaffolding working on the cage and Fernandez was on the ground. Suddenly, the cage tilted over and collapsed.
“Plaintiff Fernando Fernandez tried to flee from under the wall of steel above as it fell toward him but could not escape in time and was struck by the falling 26-foot high steel cage,” the complaint states. DeJesus fell to the ground next to the cage.
Fernandez suffered “grave injuries, which are painful and disabling,” the complaint reads. It lists traumatic brain injury, cortical blindness, multiple bone fractures and hematomas, organ damage, and post-traumatic stress.
DeJesus suffered contusions and abrasions, lumbar spondylosis, traumatic arthropathy, soft tissue cervical injury, soft tissue lumbar injury, and psychological effects.
Those injuries are the result of both negligence and recklessness, the complaint argues. That means, according to the plaintiffs, Walsh didn’t do what it should have to prevent the accident, both carelessly and knowingly.
Morales, Fernandez’s wife, is named as a plaintiff along with her husband. As a result of his injuries, she has lost the “care, companionship and consortium of her husband,” the complaint states.
“Constructions accidents on work sites like this are not freak accidents,” Rosen said on Tuesday. For accidents to happen, multiple time-tested precautionary measures have to be overlooked, he said. “That’s what jumps out at you when you look at almost any construction accident. It’s never just on thing.”
So why did Walsh remove the safety cables?
“I can’t wait to hear their explanation,” Rosen said.
Walsh did not return calls for comment by press time.
Rosen declined to give details on how badly his clients have been injured. About Fernandez, Rosen said only, “He wakes up every morning hoping and trying to make the best recovery he can.” The workers’ medical, personal, and work futures “can’t possibly be known” at this point.
It’s also too early to ask the question of how much money Fernandez, DeJesus, and Morales should receive in compensatory damages, Rosen said.