Wrongful Death Alleged in West Virginia Cell Tower LODD
The death of a West Virginia firefighter by a collapsing cell tower has led to a wrongful death suit against five companies, a volunteer fire department and a fire chief.
Nutter Fort firefighter Michael D. Garrett, 28, was killed on February 1, 2014 at the scene of a cell tower collapse. At the time, crews were working on the tower as well as a second one. While Garret was removing a worker injured in the initial collapse the second tower collapsed. Two workers and Garrett died in the incident.
The suit was filed in Harrison County Circuit Court by Garrett’s mother, Faith M. Garrett, in her capacity as administratrix of his estate. According to the complaint, Fire Chief Brenda Fragmin of the Summit Park Volunteer Fire Department was on scene and directed Garrett and other Nutter Fort firefighters to remove the injured worker when the second tower fell striking Garrett.
The complaint names S&S Communications Specialists Inc. of Oklahoma; SBA Communications Corp. of Florida; and three other out-of-state firms, FDH Inc., FDH Engineering Inc., FDH Velocitel, the Summit Park Volunteer Fire Department and Chief Fragmin.
“The collapse occurred because employees were removing more than one brace at a time without replacing them” State Police/OSHA in vesting actions.
This is a “W-T-F” moment.
Who was running this “operation”?
Looks like “common sense” never showed up to work that day.
If anything, a “Lookout” at a minimum should have been established, let alone an inspection of the second tower and it’s stability before rescue operations were started.