High Winds to Blame in Scaffold Accident Injuring Six

Six masonry workers were injured in a construction accident at a Johnson County school in Kansas on Monday. Contractors speculated on Tuesday that high winds were to blame.

It is believed that high winds may have caught the plastic that draped the 20-foot-tall scaffold, turning it into a sail that pulling the rig down around 5 p.m. Monday at the site of a 200-seat theater under construction.

Four of the injured workers, all employed by Dcm Masonry of Kansas City, were transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center, where one was treated and released and the others remained in stable condition Tuesday, a spokesman said. The other two workers were transported to Research Medical Center, where a spokesman declined to supply a status report due to privacy restrictions. Three of the injured workers suffered broken bones in result of the accident.

Investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Wichita are searching to reasons as to why the scaffold failed and caused the accident by sifting through the tangled framework at Blue Valley North High School in south Overland Park.

“We were very fortunate. It could have been a lot worse,” said Jennifer Diaz, owner of Dcm Masonry, the project subcontractor that employs 30 workers. The project’s general contractor, Excel Constructors, reports it has been in business for 17 years without a major accident.

Classes at the 1,485-student school will not be affected, and the renovation is still scheduled to be completed by August, 2009, stated a school district official.