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MOORESVILLE Jose Figueroa and Annette Burgess met at a soccer match in Huntersville 15 years ago.
On July 25, they were finally set to get married at Shady Grove Baptist Church in Mount Ulla.
Now Burgess is mourning her fiance's death.
Figueroa died on Lake Norman in Iredell County on Tuesday when a 11/2-ton pole struck him on a barge he was working on for a dredging company, according to a preliminary report of the incident received by the N.C. Department of Labor in Raleigh. Employers must notify the department within eight hours of a worker's death.
Figueroa and another worker were trying to reposition the barge by lifting the 30-foot-long, 3,000-pound pole, or “spud,” according to the report.
One of the workers was operating an excavator. The pole slipped and hit Figueroa, knocking him into the lake, the report said. An official cause of death wasn't available Friday night.
Efforts to reach officials with Carolina Land and Marine Construction, the Mooresville company Figueroa worked for, were unsuccessful on Friday.
The state's investigation into a work-related death can take anywhere from a few weeks to six months, according to the Department of Labor.
Burgess said the last time she saw Figueroa, 45, was on Sunday. On Friday, they were supposed to go out as usual for tacos.
“He was a very loving person, very caring,” Burgess said from her Mooresville home on Friday.
Now she is trying to raise money to send Figueroa's body back to his native Mexico for burial.
