Officials announced on Thursday that a 27-year-old ironworker had died and another had been critically injured after falling approximately nine stories from a scaffold at a UChicago Medicine building construction site.
The workmen fell from a scaffold due to strong winds shortly after 12:15 p.m. and landed on the ground, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
Only a short distance from the scene, at UChicago Medicine, the surviving employee is in critical condition.
In the 5600 block of South Maryland Avenue, workers were constructing a new cancer research center, according to officials.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration states that New Horizon Steel, the workers’ employer, has not been the subject of any prior investigations.
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According to an OSHA representative, the administration has begun an investigation into the mishap. Up to six months will pass before the probe is finished.
Police tape had closed off a large portion of the medical complex when OSHA investigators arrived on the scene on Thursday.
The section of East 57th Street between Cottage Grove Avenue and Drexel Avenue was under the patrol of university police officers.
For the last five years, Turner Construction, the project’s general contractor, has not had any inspections in Illinois.
