One killed, two hurt in Raleigh construction accident

One person was killed and two others injured Tuesday in a construction site accident near Triangle Town Center mall in Raleigh, authorities said.

The three workers were buried when a portion of an excavated area collapsed at about 11:15 a.m. at a work site at Old Wake Forest Road and Triangle Town Boulevard, where crews are building affordable housing, according to a spokeswoman from the North Carolina Department of Labor.

Workers and others at the scene were able to pull two of the buried workers to safety but weren't able to dig the third person out from under the dirt, authorities said.

"It was quickly apparent they were not able to do anything to save him," said Jeff Hammerstein, assistant chief of Wake EMS.

"It's absolutely heart-wrenching for everyone involved," Hammerstein said. "There are a lot of workers and employees and co-workers involved who are clearly quite upset, understandably, and we're working with them to get them the resources they need."

In addition to Wake EMS, Raleigh firefighters and police officers were assisting in the effort to recover the man's body. Old Wake Forest Road was blocked off between Triangle Town Boulevard and Fox Road for the recovery operation much of Tuesday afternoon.

The two injured workers were taken to WakeMed for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries, but information about their conditions was unknown Tuesday afternoon.

Harold K. Jordan & Co., the Apex-based general contractor for the 382-unit apartment complex, said the man who died worked for Vertical Walls Inc., a subcontractor hired by Honeycutt Construction Services Inc., which is handling site preparation work before the apartments can be built.

Vertical Walls was excavating an area to build a retaining wall for a stormwater retention pond when the accident occurred, HKJ officials said.

Inspectors with the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health were at the site Tuesday to investigate the accident.

Scott Niebauer, HKJ's director of business development, said a federal workplace safety consultant was at the construction site in November to ensure all safety precautions were being met.

Contractor previously fined for safety violations

But WRAL Investigates found HKJ has been fined more than $35,000 since 2014 for safety issues.

In 2014, the company paid $2,800 for fall-related issues at a construction site. Two years later, it reached settlements on other fall-related violations and was cited, but not fined, for failing to protect workers in trenches.

In 2017, two different HKJ work sites were fined a total of $30,000, mostly for scaffolding and fall protection issues.

The state investigated four other complaints but cleared HKJ, and the company passed eight other inspections, according to Department of Labor records.

"We've jumped leaps and bounds since that time," Niebauer said of the previous violations, saying the company now has "a great safety program" in place.

Neither Honeycutt nor Vertical Walls have had any workplace safety violations, according to state and federal records.

Tuesday's death was HKJ's first on-the-job fatality in 30 years of business, Niebauer said. "We hope that we never have one again."

Construction accidents accounted for half of the 44 workplace deaths in North Carolina last year, according to the state Department of Labor.

In August, a piece of heavy equipment overturned on a worker at a construction site in southeastern Wake County, killing him.

No one was hurt in December, when an explosion at a Durham construction site sent debris flying through a nearby neighborhood, but some homes were damaged.