A worker at a construction site in Fort Worth died Wednesday morning after becoming entangled with construction equipment.
Medical crews responded to the call in the 400 block of Northeast Loop 820 around 4:45 a.m. and pronounced the victim dead at the scene. A spokesperson for the Fort Worth police stated in an email to The Dallas Morning News that “It is believed that the victim became entangled with some construction equipment and was unable to get free.”
This is at least the fourth construction-related death in North Texas this month. A man died on March 3 after electrocuting himself while trimming trees in Southlake, while another worker was killed on the same day when a crane at a construction site fell on him. A few days later, on March 7, a worker died after falling off a roof, according to WFAA.
Mike Lyons, a catastrophic injury and wrongful death attorney, believes these accidents could have been avoided, and construction workers are being put in unsafe positions during their jobs, per WFAA.
“What we see day in and day out are contractors and sub-contractors who are placed in harms [sic] way, unsafe conditions, knowingly unsafe conditions, people who are getting killed, people who are getting maimed,” Lyons told WFAA.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is investigating all four of the deaths, but no citations have been issued. Lyons believes the construction being done requires a specific skill set that some workers may not have, resulting in a dangerous situation for those involved.
“There’s [sic] not enough skilled laborers to do the construction that is required. That puts pressure on using people that maybe don’t have the proper skillset,” Lyons claimed to WFAA. “Maybe they’re not properly experienced enough or trained and that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Authorities are still investigating the construction worker’s death in Fort Worth, and no further details about the incident have been released.