Wrecker hit by falling debris and excavator profiled in local newspaper.
Not many people trapped under a slab of concrete and an excavator walk away to tell the tale. But just over a month after we reported on an accident that could all too easily have killed him, Sean McMurray is fully recovered and has been profiled in his local newspaper.
On 17 February, McMurray, 51, was working with an apprentice on the second floor, taking down one of the last pieces of flooring on the level, with no idea that minutes later he’d be trapped under a concrete slab, unable to move as an excavator fell onto him.
“We were 75 percent of the way through the project,” McMurray said. “We took every safety precaution.”
With the work on the second floor mostly complete, he sent his apprentice to start work in a different area while he finished. He watched the apprentice work his way down the ladder and turned around.
“It opened up like a trapdoor,” McMurray said of the floor. “I fell down 12 feet and was laying in a cloud of dust. I remember laying down and looking up.”
He was looking up with a concrete slab, weighing thousands of pounds, on top of him, still partially hinged. It covered his body up to the chin, McMurray said. At the time, he was still conscious.
“The last thing I remember,” McMurray said, “there was an electrical excavator still up there. The concrete slab slid another two inches and I couldn’t see anything anymore. I thought to myself, ‘This is gonna be nasty.'”
Read the rest of the story here.
