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Two construction workers hospitalized after Mather Airport accident
MATHER-- Construction continued at Mather Field Thursday after an accident sent two people to the hospital.
"They arrived to find large metal beams had collapsed down at the construction site," Sac Metro Fire Assistant Chief Maurice Johnson said.
Assistant Chief Johnson said the large metal beams fell at the site where aircraft hangars are being built.
"The way the beams fell they kind of self stabilized themselves with the ground and the beams that are still standing," said Assistant Chief Johnson.
Sac County Airports confirms the accident happened at the EVA Flight Training Academy, a tenant of Mather Field.
Johnson said the workers' injuries are "moderate."
Cal OSHA says the workers were hurt after losing control of an iron beam they were trying to connect to another.
"It's part of the business," Jim Meurer is a specialty contractor working on the building adjacent to the hangars.
He came to check things out after hearing what happened.
"Its an inherently dangerous component of construction but apparently there was a shift in the building frame and they started sheering bolts and they lost the structure," Meurer said.
Meurer says no matter how safe you are, accidents are part of life in construction.
Luckily, these workers were not severely hurt.
"The immediate concern is for the patients, to make sure the scene's secure. The scene is secure and the patients have been taken care of and the rest falls with the construction company," said Assistant Chief Johnson.
Metro Fire says the construction company is Ascent Builders.
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Workers injured after large beam fell on them at construction site
By Nashelly Chavez
nchavez@sacbee.com
California Division of Occupational Safety and Health officials said two people sent to a hospital Thursday morning after a metal beam fell on them at Mather Airport work for Ascent Builders, a Sacramento construction company.
The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District received reports of a building that collapsed about 10:50 a.m. at the airport near Bullard Street and Superfortress Avenue, said Maurice Johnson, fire district assistant chief.
Fire district personnel found that a building had not collapsed, but a beam had fallen on the pair at a construction site, Johnson said.
The injured workers were connecting iron beams when they lost control of the beams, said Julia Bernstein, a Cal-OSHA spokeswoman, in an email.
Bernstein said she could not provide additional information because an investigation of the accident by Cal-OSHA is underway.
Officials at Ascent Builders declined to comment about the accident.
The construction site was at one of five new shade hangars being built at the airport, said Laurie Slothower, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Department of Airports.
Construction began several months ago and were intended to be used for a new EVA Flight Training Academy, a school for people who want to become professional pilots, she added.
“It’s months from opening,” Slothower said. “This is a new business at Mather Airport.”