Worker Hurt During Subway Construction

A subway construction worker suffered severe injuries Tuesday morning when he was pinned beneath a 15-foot-high section of steel reinforcement bars that suddenly collapsed, crushing his chest, stomach and back.

The 28-year-old man, who was not immediately identified, was airlifted to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills after the 8:40 a.m. accident at the Red Line’s Universal City station on Lankershim Boulevard.

The victim was conscious and alert after co-workers pulled hundreds of pounds of steel bars off him and hoisted him to safety using a construction crane. He was reported in good condition late Tuesday with a broken rib and a back injury.

“It seems almost miraculous that he was not impaled by the steel rods,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said. “He was very fortunate.”

The cause of the accident was under investigation by officials from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is building the subway from downtown to the San Fernando Valley, and the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

The worker and three colleagues were tying together a “cage” of rebar--the reinforcing steel bars that strengthen concrete--in an open pit about 40 feet below the surface when the rods collapsed, sending a tangle of steel crashing down on the man. The workers were securing the rods so that concrete could be poured over them to form a wall near the station entrance.

“The rebar shifted down like dominoes and caught one of the workers,” said Rick Jager, a spokesman for the MTA.

The MTA’s project manager at the site, John Adams, said such rebar cages are typically held in place by steel wire tied to wood pilings driven into the ground. He was uncertain whether the steel rods that collapsed had been properly secured.

But in the aftermath of the accident, Adams said, all other such cages at the site would be checked to ensure stability. He also said a meeting will be held this week with construction workers to advise them of the potential dangers in preparing concrete walls.

The accident is the latest in a series of safety lapses to plague the Red Line.

In February, a worker was killed when a half-ton refuse bin broke free of its mooring and struck him in the head inside a tunnel beneath Hollywood Boulevard. In another incident that same month, a worker was hospitalized after he was struck in the head by a 400-pound cylinder that fell off a digging machine. And in January, tunnel workers in Studio City escaped injury after a crane operator accidentally dropped a load of rails 80 feet down an access shaft.

Tuesday’s accident also marked the second time a worker at the Universal City station site has been injured since the beginning of the year. No details were immediately available about the first incident, which occurred in January, MTA officials said.

The project’s managers defended the safety of the station construction, calling both of the accidents rare occurrences since work began nearly 18 months ago.

MTA officials said the rate of serious accidents at the site falls far below national statistics. The Universal City station has logged 1.9 “lost-time” accidents per 200,000 hours of work, meaning incidents that force a worker off the job, contrasted with the U.S. average for heavy construction work of 4.2 incidents for the same amount of time, MTA officials said.

The injured worker is employed by Martinez Steel Co., a subcontractor for Tutor-Saliba/Perini, the company that is building the Universal City station.