A 27-year-old ironworker is dead, and another was left in critical condition after falling about nine stories from a scaffold at a construction site of a UChicago Medicine building, officials said Thursday.
Shortly after 12:15 p.m., the workers fell from a scaffold during high winds, landing on the ground, said Larry Langford, Chicago Fire Department spokesman. The surviving worker is in critical condition at UChicago Medicine, a few steps from the site.
Officials said the workers were building a new cancer research center in the 5600 block of South Maryland Avenue.
The workers’ employer, New Horizon Steel, has not been previously investigated, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The administration has opened an inspection into the accident, a, OSHA spokesperson said. The investigation will take up to six months to complete.
OSHA investigators were on scene Thursday where police tape blocked off much of the medical complex. University police officers patrolled the stretch of East 57th Street from Cottage Grove Avenue to Drexel Avenue.
Turner Construction, the general contractor for the project, does not have an inspection history in Illinois from the last five years.