Construction at Kansas City’s new performing arts center is on hold today while officials investigate an accident that killed one worker and injured another Tuesday.
The workers were about 50 feet up in the air on a cherry picker-type lift when the vehicle tipped over about 1:45 p.m., throwing the men onto 16th Street just east of Broadway.
Ambulances rushed both men to hospitals, where one, a 35-year-old Lee’s Summit man, was pronounced dead. Police said the second man, a 30-year-old Grain Valley resident, was in serious but stable condition Tuesday evening.
“We’re all very saddened by an incident like this,” J.E. Dunn Construction Co. President Dan Euston said. “Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the families involved.”
The new $400 million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts is about halfway complete, with its opening slated for fall 2011.
Euston said the two workers were employees of Detroit-based Midwest Steel Inc., a subcontractor. Their names were not released Tuesday, pending notification of relatives.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the lift to tip over.
Euston said Tuesday that the investigation was in its earliest stages. Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators, local authorities and J.E. Dunn safety personnel will work to determine why the accident happened, he said.
Other than the surviving worker, there are no known eyewitnesses to the collapse, said Kansas City Police Officer Darin Snapp, a department spokesman. After hearing the crash, fellow workers rushed to assist the men until emergency responders arrived.
The long boom of the orange and yellow lift lay crumpled across a truck piled with steel beams. The vehicle’s base was on end just north of the structure, with two of four wheels in the air.
Two hardhats and what appeared to be blood could be seen on the pavement beneath the basket, which came to rest a few feet above 16th Street.
After ambulances took the victims away, other construction workers trickled out of the site, most with lunch coolers in hand.
Euston said he expected the job site to reopen on Thursday, after OSHA and other investigators had a chance to review the scene.
Aerial lifts with articulating booms are common construction equipment and have been in use at the arts center site for months, Euston said.
He said subcontractors usually bring in their own equipment or rent it locally. Lettering on the lift that fell over indicated it belonged to a rental company.
The workers involved in Tuesday’s accident were connecting steel beams to the side of the structure, Euston said. Typically, he said, that process involves a crane hoisting the beams into place and workers on the lift attaching them.
Euston said he did not know whether something struck the lift or whether it tipped over on its own.
“We will investigate thoroughly as to exactly what happened,” he said.
Construction on the performing arts center began in October 2006.
Jane Chu, the center’s president and CEO, offered condolences after Tuesday’s deadly accident.
“We’re deeply saddened, and our hearts go out to the families of these men and to all the workers on this site,” she said.
To reach Sara Shepherd, call 816-234-4366 or send e-mail to sshepherd@kcstar.com.
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