On the frosty but clear afternoon of Presidents' Day, 2004, the ambitions of Fru-Con Construction and the Ohio Department of Transportation for the Veterans' Glass City Skyway project to be a paragon of workplace safety failed when a construction crane collapsed, killing four workers and injuring four others.
The Feb. 16, 2004, accident near Front Street in East Toledo - for which the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Fru-Con $280,000 and for which the contractor later paid out at least $11.25 million to the dead workers' families - forever placed a symbolic stain on what was to have become a celebrated signature to the Toledo skyline.
Yesterday morning, the fall of a construction platform that killed a construction worker was another traumatic event. It brought the I-280 project's overall death toll to five and rekindled memories of that horrific afternoon 38 months ago.
"It's like you relive everything again," said Nicole Moreau of Monroe County's Summerfield Township, mother of Mike Moreau who was killed in that last I-280 bridge accident.
A year after the 2004 accident, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Toledo) had called on federal regulators to help with a criminal investigation into the collapse. She had asked the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Transportation, and later the Federal Highway Administration to assist Toledo police and the Lucas County prosecutor's office.
After Fru-Con agreed to pay OSHA $280,000 in penalties, follow the agency's recommendations, and make other moves, there was no need to involve the other authorities, said Miss Kaptur's spokesman, Steve Fought.
"Fru-Con not only paid $280,000 in penalties, it also was told to clean up its act on the project," Mr. Fought said yesterday.
Toledo police Lt. Kevin Keel said the criminal investigation into the 2004 accident is still ongoing and no charges have been filed.
"We're trying to work as quickly as we possibly can. It's a complex investigation," he said. "We want to make sure we get the bases covered."
The Lucas County Prosecutor's Office also continues to investigate the 2004 crane collapse, said John Weglian, chief of the office's special units division.
Investigators met in January with the engineering firm Exponent, Inc. of Menlo Park, Ca., but personal health issues have put the investigation on hold for the past few months.
"We're in the process of figuring out what else we need to do in terms of investigating the case," Mr. Weglian said.
The next move would be meeting with and interviewing officials with Paolo de Nicola, the Italian company that manufactured the crane.
Since the accident, the statute of limitations for misdemeanor charges - two years - has passed, but felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless homicide could still be considered, Mr. Weglian said.
The statute of limitations for felony charges is six years, he said.
The contractor and ODOT initially were part of what was considered a landmark agreement for construction-site safety under which a special committee, with delegates from Fru-Con, OSHA, ODOT, state consultants, unions, and certain project sub-contractors, was to check safety programs established by subcontractors, audit on-site safety performance, and review any issues that arise.
Contractor penalties were to be reduced for "good faith" and "quick fix" rules violations, and waived for minor infractions that can be corrected on the spot.
But the special program was canceled after the 2004 accident, and OSHA's investigation would later fault Fru-Con for compromising safety with crane-handling shortcuts.
Other accidents and regulatory violations at the I-280 construction site have cost the Ballwin, Mo.-based contractor nearly $90,000 in federal fines beyond those it paid for violations related to the crane collapse.
In between the two fatal accidents, the Skyway construction site has been the scene of several lesser incidents, including two within 15 minutes of each other on Jan. 26, 2006, that caused minor injuries to two construction workers.
While an OSHA inspection that day found no violations associated with those two incidents, federal inspectors found three safety violations elsewhere on the project for which their agency later assessed $14,750 in fines.
Even bigger was the $70,000 fine OSHA proposed - later reduced to $56,000 - for a crane incident on Oct. 23, 2004, on the first day that mainline construction in East Toledo was to have resumed using the identical twin of the crane involved in the Presidents' Day collapse.
The October incident, in which no one was injured, involved a miswired switch controlling a retractable support leg on the crane.
When a worker pushed the switch to lower the leg, the reversed wiring meant that it attempted to retract until a cable inside the leg snapped and the leg fell free, striking an unoccupied work platform attached to the pier below.
How the accident yesterday might affect plans for a memorial sculpture to honor all workers on the bridge project, including those killed and injured during its construction, remains to be determined, said Mary Chris Skeldon, chairman of the Veterans' Glass City Skyway Task Force gala committee.
The sculpture, to be placed in nearby Ravine Park II, had been designed to pay special tribute to the four ironworkers killed in the 2004 accident.
A May 24 gala to celebrate the bridge's impending opening and to raise money for the memorial's construction, is tentatively set to go on as scheduled, Ms. Skeldon said.
Toledoan Darlene Linser, whose brother Arden Clark II died in 2004, said Mr. Burris's death is heart-wrenching.
The bridge is a constant reminder of her loss, Ms. Linser said.
"It's just something I'll never forget," she said.
"It's sad because the guys go out and go to work, and they can't trust the things they're working on. Maybe someday, somebody will do something about it," she said.
Staff writers Julie McKinnon, Christina Hall, JC Reindl, and Meghan Gilbert contributed to this report.
Contact David Patch at:
dpatch@theblade.com
or 419-724-6094.
First Published April 20, 2007, 10:16 a.m.
