Another Worker Dies in Boston's Latest Construction Accident
Another Worker Dies in Boston's Latest Construction Accident
Abstract
June 9, 2022 Scott Van Voorhis KEYWORDS Boston Seaport / construction fatality Order Reprints No Comments Boston Police and the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration are investigating a June 9 early morning construction accident that killed a worker in Boston's Seaport district- the latest in a spate of fatalities at worksites across the city's metro area during the past 18 months. Jeff Newton, a spokesman for MassCOSH, an advocacy group for workplace safety, told the Globe that the victim was working "Around the unloading of street curbing material when the heavy blocks became loose and crushed him."The death comes two weeks after a National Grid worker was electrocuted and three police officers injured on May 26 in a work accident in nearby Medford, Mass.It also occurred a month after the May 4 collapse of a catwalk in a defunct 124-year-old power plant building in South Boston that sent three workers to the hospital. A wall collapsed during demolition work on the Edison Power Plant in South Boston landed on one worker's legs and lower body, leaving him with life-threatening injuries. The contractor on the project, Suffolk Construction, later issued a safety stand down on all projects in Boston following a second incident a day later in which a work fell 30 ft at a construction site in the city's South End neighborhood. In response to the latest serious construction accident, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called on contractors to redouble their safety efforts. In a 14-month span leading up to early May, five construction workers had been killed in Boston and surrounding communities on various construction sites. The fatalities include an employee of an ironworks company who tumbled six stories down a stairwell shaft at a construction site in East Boston, a worker killed by a collapsing stairwell in an East Cambridge parking garage, and two Atlantic Coast Utilities employees who died after being knocked into a 9-foot-deep trench at a worksite in Boston's Financial District.