A job at a private residence in Massachusetts ended tragically with a worker suffering a fatal crush injury while doing some contracted work on the home.
According to authorities, the fatal accident while the man, who was 50, was working under the foundation of the home in a trench. The man’s employer had been contracted to remove some concrete walls from underneath the porch of the house.
While the man was in the trench, a pile of concrete from the foundation of the home collapsed and fell on the man, who got pinned between the concrete and the wall of the trench. The house itself did not collapse because the crew had reinforced the part of the foundation that failed. While rescue workers removed the concrete that had fallen and tried to revive the man, he was pronounced dead upon his arrival at the hospital.
An investigation is ongoing, but the local prosecutor has already indicated that law enforcement is treating this death as a tragic fatal workplace accident. An autopsy on the man’s body will be performed in order to confirm the precise cause of death.
Although one might expect that home contracting is a more mundane type of construction, as this case shows, even construction work on a private residence, particularly when one is dealing with trenches and working on the foundation of a house, can be dangerous and can even leave a family grieving the loss of a loved one and breadwinner.
Fortunately, in Massachusetts, all employers have to provide workers’ compensation benefits to their employees and, in fatal accidents like the one here, the families of deceased employees. These benefits are awarded without regard to who was at fault for the accident and included payments for a portion of the worker’s lost wages, as well as compensation for medical bills and funeral expenses.
Source: The Boston Globe, “Construction worker killed while working on Medford home,” Danny McDonald, Aug. 2, 2017.
