Worker, 16, falls to his death at Gwinnett Place Mall “no safety equipment in sight”

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.ajc.com/wireless/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2008/11/14/fatal_fall_gwinnett.html

By ANDRIA SIMMONS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Friday, November 14, 2008

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the deadly fall of a 16-year-old construction worker at Gwinnett Place Mall this week.

A Gwinnett police officer who arrived at the vacant Macy’s building shortly after Luis Montoya fell to his death at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday noticed there was “no safety equipment in sight” and none of the workers were wearing hard hats. Instead, the hard hats were piled together on the second floor, a police report said.

Montoya was tossing steps from a demolished escalator from the third floor to ground level when he lost his balance and fell over the ledge. He landed in a 5-foot-deep concrete pit at the bottom of the empty escalator well, said Ray Rawlins, an investigator with the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The teenager was working in the vacant Macy’s department store, which developer George Thorndyke is converting into a giant Asian ethnic shopping destination.

“He fell approximately 40 feet, so I don’t think a hard hat would have done much for him,” Rawlins said.

A 16-year-old can legally work an unlimited number of hours during the week; however, he or she cannot work in a “hazardous position,” said Elizabeth Todd, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Labor’s public affairs office.

FULL story at link.