PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One man is dead and another is hurt after a big piece of drilling equipment came crashing down at a work site in University City on Tuesday night. Philadelphia police say both victims were trapped when the crane fell.
The emotional toll the accident has taken was plainly visible on Wednesday morning among workers at the site. One man took his hard hat off, hugged a couple of his colleagues, and then quietly crouched down to the ground. Others near him were wiping away tears.
A few hundred feet away, the enormous drill rig wasn’t upright as it should be. It was lying on its side on the ground, the bottom of the tread at eye level.
At around 8:30 p.m., officials say, a drill rig on Convention Avenue collapsed near the Penn Museum parking garage and SEPTA's Penn Medicine Station. The area is across the street from Franklin Field, near South Street.
"They were just moving heavy equipment off a tractor trailer and putting it into the work site," Assistant Fire Chief Charles Walker said. "That’s when the crane turned over."
Firefighters on the scene were able to recover an inspector and the rig operator from the debris around 9:15 p.m. It is initially unclear how long the workers were trapped.
Both were taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. The 55-year-old inspector was pronounced dead at about 9:45 p.m. The rig operator got checked out at a hospital and is expected to make a physical recovery.
There was a fuel spill at the site as well that had to be cleaned up.
It is a frightening situation that could have been even worse if the timing were different, Walker says.
"This is a high-traffic area during the day, and it could have been a lot more potential for danger to many folks," Walker said. "But still, there were two individuals who were hurt here, so that’s the tragedy."
The city's Department of Licenses and Inspections is investigating the collapse to determine its cause. And Occupational Safety and Health Administration released a statement on Wednesday saying that their Philadelphia area office "will conduct a thorough investigation of the incident and any related hazards to employees at the work site."
OSHA has up to six months to complete the investigation.
So far, there has been no public statement from Cook Drilling Corporation, the company doing the work at the site.