Ill-Secured Steel Bars Blamed in Worker’s Death

A 3,500-pound column of steel reinforcing bars that fatally crushed a man Monday at a Newport Beach hotel construction site fell because it had been improperly secured, a Cal-OSHA official said Tuesday.

James Brown, state Occupational Safety and Health Administration district manager for Orange County, also disclosed that a worker at the site last week filed a complaint alleging unsafe conditions. Brown said, however, that “the substance of the complaint did not have anything to do with the columns. It was in a different area of concern.”

Brown would neither disclose the nature of that complaint nor identify the person who filed it, citing state labor codes that he said protect those reporting alleged safety violations. He would only say that the man who died had not made the complaint.

Arrived to Check Complaint

The Cal-OSHA inspector now investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of welder Joey Hlista, 23, learned of the accident when he arrived Monday morning to check on last week’s complaint, Brown said.

Hlista, a Costa Mesa subcontractor working for A. Lloyd’s Welding of Westminster, was installing a “full penetration” weld on steel reinforcing bars on the fourth floor of the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel’s new wing about 11:30 a.m. when an adjacent steel column toppled on him, authorities said. He died almost instantly of massive head and internal injuries.

Workers for Recon Steel, a Los Alamitos steel reinforcement firm and one of several subcontractors hired by the Newport Beach Marriott Hotel to construct the 14-story wing, were responsible for the guy wires that held the 24-foot-tall reinforcing-bar columns in place, Brown said.

“One company was doing the guying, another company was doing the welding,” Brown said. “There were a number of subcontractors and workers out there. We’ve been told which subcontractor was doing the guying, but not which of the workers for that company (guyed the column that toppled) . . . . It’s too early to tell if any one (of them) is responsible, and if they are, to what degree.”

Employees Interviewed

Dana Storts, manager of Recon Steel, said Tuesday that the firm is investigating the accident and that he has interviewed employees working on the project.

“We’re in the middle of the investigation right now,” Storts said, “so I really don’t have much to say at this point yet . . . . Anything I might say would tend to (place blame) one way or the other, and we aren’t in a position to do that yet.’

Cal-OSHA is continuing its investigation into the incident and, meanwhile, checking last week’s complaint, Brown said.

Construction of the hotel support beams involves hoisting the reinforcing bars by crane to the fourth floor, righting them, guying them so they can be temporarily welded in place, then permanently welding them to the foundation, Brown said. Then, the columns are covered with concrete. Different subcontractors are responsible for various tasks. Hlista’s was the final welding before the guy cables were removed.

Brown said that process complies with state administrative code standards that require only that the columns “be properly guyed or braced so they won’t fall over.”

The column “did fall over because it was not securely guyed in place,” Brown said. “But . . . we are not going to place the blame until we are certain of who is responsible.”

Brown said subcontractors have been forbidden to work on the fourth floor, with the exception of those “safeguarding the columns that are already there.”

Work on other parts of the hotel wing, which, when completed in October, 1986, will contain 202 rooms and a top-floor cocktail lounge, continued Tuesday.