6 workers, firefighter injured in partial parking deck collapse in midtown Atlanta

ATLANTA — Firefighters said six workers were injured when a parking deck under construction partially collapsed on Friday in Midtown.

The accident happened at the new Emory Midtown Hospital parking lot on West Peachtree Street at Linden Avenue around 11 a.m. Firefighters said pre-fabricated wall of the 11th floor collapsed onto the 10th floor.

Atlanta Fire Rescue Deputy Chief Glen Riley said one worker was trapped under the rubble. NewsChopper 2 was over the scene live as firefighters pulled the injured worker out from under debris and loaded him onto a backboard. Crews used a crane to lower him to the ground.

Riley said he has serious leg injuries.

Five other injured workers were able to walk away from the scene with minor injuries.

One firefighter was also taken to the hospital for apparent heat stroke.

Channel 2′s Richard Elliot was at the scene, where Atlanta Fire Rescue officials said they had to get creative to get the one trapped worker out. They used two saws to cut him out while using rigging to keep him safe.

“We used that to try and cut as much as we can off of him, lift him up as much as we can and then slide him out of there,” Riley said.

Riley said a bigger issue was that they couldn’t get him off of the roof fast enough, so they used the construction crew’s radios to guide the crane operator so they could lift him in a stretcher and slowly lower him to spring street below.

“For that particular crane operator to do what he did, I give him a lot of kudos,” Riley said. “And for us to be able to coordinate and collaborate to make that happen is an awesome thing.”

Firefighters are still working to learn the cause of the collapse. OSHA investigators are on the way to the scene. Engineers worked to stabilize the structure Friday afternoon as police shut down the streets below.

GEMA was also at the site with a search and rescue team to make sure everyone got out.

Channel 2′s Nicole Carr learned that this is the second incident in recent years in Midtown involving worker injuries or death in a project by the same company.

Baston Cook Construction tweeted that they were responsible for constructing one of Atlanta’s largest parking facilities in June. The deck at Emory Midtown is slated to be 16 floors with 3,000 parking spaces and 16,000 square feet of retail space.

Records show that the company paid more than a a$12,000 fine for a 2017 accident that killed a 20-year-old construction worker at a Midtown hospital site. At the time, the company’s president told us it involved concrete placement.

A decade earlier, two of the company’s construction workers were unconscious at the bottom of a 25-foot-deep manhole in Forsyth County. One died and the other was hospitalized.

In an informal settlement, records show the company paid a $5,000 OSHA fine tied to a training violation.

The priority in Midtown now includes figuring out the status of what’s attached to the deck.

Carr reached out to the company, but hasn’t heard back.

in a separate division, the construction company is also working with OSHA investigators in Virginia after a crane collapse at a downtown Charlottesville construction site earlier this year.

Cox Media Group