An electrician was fatally injured Thursday when he fell about 50 stories from the Wilshire Grand Tower under construction in downtown Los Angeles and landed on a vehicle.
Paramedics sent to the 600 block of South Figueroa Street about 12:35 p.m. pronounced the man dead at the scene, said Margaret Stewart of the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The woman driving the vehicle was not physically injured but was taken to a hospital for further evaluation, Stewart said.
It was the victim’s second day on the job, according to reports from the scene. His name was withheld, pending notification of his family.
He was employed by ASSI Security Inc. out of Irvine, according to Erika Monterroza of Cal/OSHA, the state’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The circumstances of the death were under investigation by Los Angeles police and Cal/OSHA, which opened an inspection with both ASSI and the project’s general contractor, Turner Construction Co. of Anaheim.
The 73-story Wilshire Grand is being developed by Korean Air, which is owned by Hanjin International Corp., at a cost topping $1 billion. The high- rise will be 1,100 feet when completed in 2017, surpassing the height of the U.S. Bank Tower, currently the tallest building in Los Angeles at 1,018 feet.
Turner closed the work site for the day and indicated it would make counselors available to those affected by the tragedy.
“We were deeply saddened to learn that we have lost a member of the team building the Wilshire Grand Center,” a company statement says. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the worker’s family. On any given day, there are 1,000 men and women working on this project. The entire team working on this project is committed to the safety of all of our workers, and we will do everything we can to understand what happened here Thursday and prevent it from happening again.”
— Wire reports