Niskayuna police say a construction worker died after a fall at the Iroquois Village Apartments construction site on Alice Wagner Way, off Hillside Ave. The man was airlifted to Albany Medical Center after falling 35 feet around 11:30 a.m. Sunday. The man later died, police said. (Marc Schultz/Gazette Photographer)
Posted By: Kathryn Hume March 15, 2016
BY ZACHARY MATSON
Gazette Reporter
NISKAYUNA — A construction worker who fell about 35 feet at the construction site of a Niskayuna apartment development died after being transported to Albany Medical Center on Sunday, Niskayuna Police Chief Dan McManus said today.
Wilfredo Vasquez, 37, was transported to the hospital after Niskayuna firefighters responded to a call for the fall shortly after 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. The accident happened at the Iroquois Village development off of Hillside Avenue near the U.S. Army Reserve Center.
Vasquez appeared to have been outfitted with a harness, but Niskayuna Fire Chief Dale Lingenfelter said he did not know if it was properly secured or what caused the fall.
The national Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which investigates serious workplace accidents, opened an investigation into the accident and an investigator visited the site Sunday, U.S. Department of Labor spokesman Ted Fitzgerald said this afternoon.
The agency will investigate whether there were any “violations of workplace safety standards,” Fitzgerald said.
A spokeswoman for Rankin Construction, a Fort Worth, Texas-based construction contractor on the project, said the worker was an employee of subcontractor Hernandez Framing.
“We are conducting a full investigation and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family,” Nancy Farrar, the spokeswoman, said in an email statement.
McManus said Vasquez had a Boston-area address and that police had spoken with Vasquez’s family.