Three Presumed Dead After 100-foot Fall Into Arkansas River
Last updated Wednesday, April 2, 2008 9:08 PM CDT in News
By John Lyon
The Morning News
NORTH LITTLE ROCK - Three construction workers were missing and presumed dead after a suspended platform on which they were working fell 100 feet from the Interstate 430 bridge into the Arkansas River shortly before 11a.m. Wednesday, authorities said.
Rescue crews from North Little Rock, Little Rock, Pulaski County and the Arkansas State Police searched the river for survivors, but by 12:30 p.m. authorities said they had switched from rescue to recovery mode. By Wednesday evening the workers' bodies had not been recovered. Workers were using a crane to try to raise an object believed to be the platform from the river.
The workers, whose names were not immediately released, were employed by Oscar Renda Contracting of Roanoke, Texas, and were working on a water line for Central Arkansas Water, said Robert Mauldin, assistant fire chief for the North Little Rock Fire Department.
The platform was suspended from the underside of the bridge, which spans the river between Little Rock and North Little Rock. Mauldin said a fourth worker went to get some supplies, and when he returned the platform was gone, apparently having fallen into the river.
The workers may have been tethered to the platform, which weighed about 5,000 pounds, Mauldin said.
"The protocol would be to be tethered some way, but whether or not they were, we're getting conflicting reports on that, so I can't say for sure," he said.
Oscar Renda Contracting is one of the contractors handling much of Fayetteville's wastewater system improvement project. Lynn Hyke, construction manager for the city on the project, said a crew working in Fayetteville last year was shifted to the bridge work in Little Rock.
Hyke said he did not know if that same crew was still working on I-430.
"It's a big company," he said.
Hyke, who worked in Little Rock before coming to Fayetteville, said the location of the bridge where the accident happened makes falling into the water treacherous.
Lt. Tim Hibbs of the Pulaski County sheriff's office said crews were dragging the river when they found a submerged object they believed was the platform. The object was directly beneath the spot near the north end of the bridge where the platform had been suspended, he said.
A heavy current resulting from recent heavy rains made it unsafe for divers to try to reach the platform, Hibbs said. Authorities considered using a barge to tow the platform into shallow water, but decided instead to use a crane to raise the platform, he said.
"I'm given to understand that there was a welder and some other equipment attached to this structure, and so we are talking about a substantial amount of weight. It's not like you could drop a piece of rope over and grab it and bring it right up," Hibbs said.
After rush-hour traffic subsided about 6 p.m., authorities shut down two lanes of northbound I-430 and positioned a crane on the bridge. They were still trying to raise the platform Wednesday evening.
David Trigg, assistant area director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said OSHA was investigating the accident. Trigg said Wednesday afternoon he did not yet know what caused the platform to come loose from the bridge.
"We're in the fact-finding mode, and there's a lot of things we don't know yet," he said.
If OSHA were to cite the workers' employer, it would have to do so within six months, Trigg said.
The Morning News' Dug Begley contributed to this report.
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