Sources: The Bergen Record Online; NorthJersey.com
The 51-year-old man who fell on steel rods during a construction accident during the weekend was working for a company hired to improve safety while the 138-unit housing complex is being built, said developer Charles Florio.
Florio said he retained The Casa Group, a New York-based safety consultantcy, paying the firm roughly $100 per hour to oversee the construction at the former Paterson Armory site on Market Street in response to a previous accident that happened there during the summer.
In the first incident, a temporary structure created as part of the construction process — collapsed. City officials said one person was injured in that incident. “We hired a compliance company because we didn’t want this kind of thing to happen,” Florio said. “It was a freak accident.”
City officials said the man fell through a shaft from the eighth story to the seventh and became impaled and suspended in midair by the metal rods, known as rebar, which are used to reinforce concrete during construction.
“He did not slide all the way down,” said Deputy Chief Jose David Molina, who was at the scene. “He was alert, oriented, and was making eye contact.”
Paterson firefighters cut through the metal bars to free him from the frame of the building and took him to the hospital with the two rods still piercing his body, authorities said. Ladder Companies 1 and 2 got a 75-foot ladder platform up to the seventh floor. The massive rescue effort, involving members of the Emergency Medical Services and Rescue Company and Special Ops personnel Saturday afternoon, was described as a heroic effort of teamwork.
The patient, whose name has not been released, was then lowered to the ground, put in an ambulance and rushed to St Joseph’s University Medical Center. “He’s undergoing major surgery,” said Saúl Cintrón, a captain with Rescue Company 2 on Saturday evening. “Miraculously, the rebar missed all the major vital organs.”
OSHA’s records indicate the issuing of six violations against Primetime Contractors, Florio’s construction company. In four of those cases, Florio faces about $393,000 in possible fines.