‘People are under rubble’: 911 call details fatal scaffolding collapse in Charlotte
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Charlotte Scaffolding Collapse
On Jan. 2, 2023, scaffolding collapsed at a construction site in Charlotte, killing three workers.
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Multiple people were “under rubble” in the wake of the January scaffolding collapse at a Charlotte construction site that killed three people, according to a witness who described the scene in a 911 call placed moments after the incident happened.
In the call, obtained Tuesday by The Charlotte Observer through a public records request, the witness says he could see three people lying “motionless.” The caller, according to the audio, was working on a “tower crane” at the time of the collapse.
“I just felt them hit my tower, looked down and it collapsed below me,” the caller tells a dispatcher. “… I see three bodies laying down there. I hope they’re not dead.”
The call was placed about “a minute or two” after the collapse happened, the caller tells the dispatcher. The dispatcher says it was the first 911 call made about the incident.
“Some people are under rubble. There’s people down there trying to uncover them,” the caller says, adding he was too high up to see if the injured people were responsive or what their injuries were.
Three construction workers — Jose Canaca, Gilberto Monico Fernández and Jesus “Chuy” Olivares — died in the Jan. 2 incident at a construction site on Morehead Street, near uptown Charlotte and Dilworth. Two other workers were injured.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police previously confirmed the collapse happened at 711 E. Morehead St., where a residential building was under construction. In October 2020, the Texas-based Hanover Company won Charlotte City Council approval to rezone the property to a mixed-use site. The project called for up to 350 apartments with a maximum building height of 170 feet, according to city documents.
The collapse shut down work at the site.
The victims worked for Friends Masonry Construction LLC, according to state Department of Labor spokeswoman Erin Wilson.
When asked, the 911 caller estimates the men who fell were 70 to 80 feet in the air at the time of the collapse. Officials have said they fell about 70 feet.
Charlotte Fire, Medic, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police and the state Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Division all responded to the scene at the time of the incident. OSH is leading the investigation into what caused the collapse.
Investigations into falls from scaffolding “can take anywhere from a few weeks to six months, depending on the complexity of the accident,” the Labor Department has said.
At least 16 people have died in scaffolding accidents in North Carolina in the last decade, a Charlotte Observer analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration records found. And Latino construction workers have experienced the highest rate of occupational death of any racial and ethnic group in North Carolina in recent years, research shows.
This story was originally published February 28, 2023 at 1:46 PM.
