Worker Falls Down Elevator Shaft, Dies

A construction worker fell down an open elevator shaft at a construction site Tuesday, plummeting 130 feet to his death, Garden Grove police said.

Juan Hernandez Cruz, 18, of San Pedro was discovered by a co-worker about 1 a.m. at the bottom of a hotel being built at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Chapman Avenue, Lt. John Woods said.

Cruz was standing on a scaffolding on the 13th floor, hanging plastic sheeting over the exterior of the site for a new Marriott Hotel. He fell when he decided to go inside the building to look for a co-worker, Woods said.

“The assumption is that it was dark, and he wasn’t familiar with it and walked into an opening,” Woodes said, adding that it was Cruz’s first day on the job.

Cal-OSHA and the Police Department are investigating.