Worker airlifted after accident at construction site near KU
Originally published 12:34 p.m., October 13, 2008
Updated 02:36 p.m., October 13, 2008
Fire and medical and construction workers teamed up this morning to lift an injured worker with a crane from the center of the bottom of the Oread Inn site near the Kansas University campus.
Chief Mark Bradford, of Lawrence Douglas County Fire & Medical, said the man suffered injuries that were not life threatening, but they were serious enough to warrant taking him by helicopter ambulance to a Kansas City area hospital.
Witnesses said it appeared the worker fell about 11 a.m. from a pillar or wall in the middle of the construction area, which has been dug out near the corner of 12th and Indiana streets.
Lawrence Douglas County Fire and Medical crews evacuate an injured construction worker from the site of the new Oread Inn. Early reports indicate the person fell from a free-standing pillar in the center of the site. He was taken by ambulance to a waiting helicopter and then transferred to a Kansas City-area hospital.
“I looked down and saw the guy who got hurt just lying there,” said Brett Beyer, a KU junior who lives at the nearby Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity. “I saw his hand twitching a little bit at the very least.”
Medics were able to use a crane on the site to lift the stretcher with the patient inside up onto Indiana Street. They loaded him into an ambulance, and minutes later, he was transferred into a LifeStar helicopter ambulance outside Memorial Stadium.
Bradford said the department routinely trains for this type of rescue. Typically they might have to use a ladder fire truck though, he said.
“There’s already a crane in place here,” Bradford said. “There’s professional crane operators, so we were able to work with them in connecting the basket to the crane and lifting the person up out of the area over to safe point where we could then move them to an ambulance.”
A medic stood on the yellow bucket stretcher to help stabilize it on the lift. Two other medics used ropes from the ground to help provide security.
Bradford said the department would not investigate the cause of the injury. The construction company is required to notify the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Part of Indiana Street is closed to traffic as the Gene Fritzel Construction Co. continues work on the $37 million hotel project.
Bradford said the department had no trouble getting vehicles near the site for the treatment and rescue.
“The construction company has done a great job of maintaining that access, and we didn’t have any access problems,” Bradford said.
The development group hopes to have the seven-story, 106-room hotel and condo development open by January 2010.
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