The safety record for the Eastside project appears to have taken a turn for the worse today, as a contractor working on the project narrowly escaped a falling concrete beam.
At around 5:15pm this evening a concrete block, apparently destined to be part of the structure of the building, fell from an upright position into the Eastside site. On its way down it struck a scissor lift, with the occupant of said lift only escaping as it fell over thanks to a warning shouted by somebody else on the site.
The occupant of the scissor lift was apparently unhurt, as no ambulance attended the scene and the site was cleared within 20 minutes. The lift itself was left lying on its side, later to be removed by one of the on-site cranes, with the concrete block removed in the same manner.
The Southside project, constructed by the same team, had an excellent safety record in general. The major blot on the landscape came after a small crane fell over within the site, having to be rescued by another crane brought in for that purpose. The crane was returned to the manufacturer for extensive analysis to determine the cause of the failure.
Eastside, like Southside, is being project managed by Arup, with Laing O'Rourke as the principal contractor.
No-one from College was immediately available to comment.
Would any Civil Engineers care to comment (not on my lack of engineering terminology though).
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