BenchRacer
02-02-2001, 09:46 AM
From the Herald News (http://www.copleynewspapers.com/heraldnews/top/j02speedway.htm)
JOLIET — A construction worker fell some 70 feet to his death Thursday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway, plunging from a scaffold into the mezzanine seats.
The unidentified man fell about 3 p.m., said Joliet police Lt. Dennis Goron.
He reportedly landed on the metal stands below.
The man, an independent contractor with Bovis Lend Lease, reportedly was installing windows in skyboxes at the raceway, a 75,000-seat facility under construction off Laraway Road.
Joliet firefighters responded to the emergency call and located the man about 120 feet up in the mezzanine level of the stadium.
"We found him. He was critical," said Steve Engledow, division chief of the Joliet Fire Department's emergency medical services.
Paramedics called in the University of Chicago Aeronautical Network helicopter, and the injured man was airlifted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.
He reportedly died sometime after rescue workers loaded him onto the helicopter.
The racetrack's director of public relations, Brian Crichton, had no information about what transpired prior to the accident. He said the man was working as an independent contractor, but Crichton did not know what his duties entailed.
Kraig Riebock of Bovis Lend Lease also had no details of the circumstances surrounding the man's fall.
The workman's death was the first fatal accident at Chicagoland Speedway.
A beam in the grandstands toppled in December, but fell during a weekend when no one was around.
No one was injured and officials blamed weather for the problem.
JOLIET — A construction worker fell some 70 feet to his death Thursday afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway, plunging from a scaffold into the mezzanine seats.
The unidentified man fell about 3 p.m., said Joliet police Lt. Dennis Goron.
He reportedly landed on the metal stands below.
The man, an independent contractor with Bovis Lend Lease, reportedly was installing windows in skyboxes at the raceway, a 75,000-seat facility under construction off Laraway Road.
Joliet firefighters responded to the emergency call and located the man about 120 feet up in the mezzanine level of the stadium.
"We found him. He was critical," said Steve Engledow, division chief of the Joliet Fire Department's emergency medical services.
Paramedics called in the University of Chicago Aeronautical Network helicopter, and the injured man was airlifted to Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.
He reportedly died sometime after rescue workers loaded him onto the helicopter.
The racetrack's director of public relations, Brian Crichton, had no information about what transpired prior to the accident. He said the man was working as an independent contractor, but Crichton did not know what his duties entailed.
Kraig Riebock of Bovis Lend Lease also had no details of the circumstances surrounding the man's fall.
The workman's death was the first fatal accident at Chicagoland Speedway.
A beam in the grandstands toppled in December, but fell during a weekend when no one was around.
No one was injured and officials blamed weather for the problem.