Isn't this some form of darwinism?
Construction worker falls to his death at Cronkite School site
Nikki Renner and Jahna Berry
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 9, 2007 03:01 PM
An ironworker fell to his death Tuesday morning while working on Arizona State University's $71 million journalism school building in downtown Phoenix.
Ian Delmar, 21, fell from the seventh floor - what is now the top of the building - 80 feet down an air conditioning shaft of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication building around 9 a.m., Phoenix Fire Spokeswoman Stacey Derge said.
The worker was taken to St. Joesph's Hospital and pronounced dead shortly after he arrived.
Around 8 a.m. a crew from Tempe's Top Flite Construction Inc. was stacking steel so that workers could build an enclosure for the mechanical equipment that will eventually go on the top of the building.
Delmar was walking backward carrying an I-beam when he kicked a piece of plywood, marked with warning signs, out of the way, Phoenix Fire spokesman Victor Rangel said. The plywood was covering the opening of the AC shaft. Delmar took a step and fell into the hole.
After he hit the ground, Delmar was not breathing and had fractures on both arms. There were also multiple internal injuries and head trauma, Rangel said.
Officers tried to resuscitate Delmar on the scene and later on the way to the hospital. Sundt Construction Inc. is building the Cronkite school, which is near First and Filmore streets.
“With all the construction that's going on here in the city, it's a common thing,” Rangel said. “It's very unfortunate when it does happen.”
Those shafts are usually covered and marked, so safety investigators are looking into what happened, Charlie Boyd, spokesman of Sundt Construction, Inc., said. Boyd is the general contractor for the entire project.
“It was a very tragic accident,” Boyd said.
Delmar was an employee of Top Flite Construction Inc., a firm that was hired by subcontractor Schuff Steel Co. to handle steel erection work on the site, Boyd said.
Top Flite's officials declined to comment.
Sundt halted construction on Tuesday, but planned to resume work on Thursday. Sundt plans to provide grief counselors and a fire department chaplain when crews return to work on Thursday morning.
The building is scheduled to open fall 2008 and will house the journalism school as well as Eight/KAET.
Sundt hasn't had a fatal employee accident in nearly two decades, and it's been several years since a subcontractor's worker died at a Sundt project, Boyd said.
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