Electrician Falls 800 Feet From LA Skyscraper, Lands on Car

It was his second day on the job
By Michael Harthorne,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 17, 2016 6:45 PM CDT
Updated Mar 18, 2016 3:00 AM CDT
Electrician Falls 800 Feet From LA Skyscraper, Lands on Car
Maintenance workers look toward a skyscraper under construction where a worker fell to his death on Thursday in Los Angeles.   (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)

An electrician working on what will soon be the tallest building on the West Coast fell 800 feet to his death Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, landing on a passing car, the AP reports. The tragedy occurred at the under-construction Wilshire Grand hotel at "one of the busiest times of day at one of the busiest intersections in downtown Los Angeles." The unidentified electrician was working on the 53rd floor when he fell, according to the Los Angeles Times. It was only his second day on the job. “It sounded like a bag of cement fell off the edge of the building,” says a Times photographer who was on assignment at the hotel. Nearly 900 people were working on the site at the time of the accident, KTLA reports. It is the first injury on the project.

The floor the electrician was working on doesn't have windows yet, though barriers had been erected to keep workers away from the edge. It doesn't appear the electrician was wearing a required safety harness when he fell, and the construction management company says there was no electrical work that should have taken him close to the edge. The man landed on a white hatchback that appeared to have out-of-state plates. "[The driver] is not injured," a fire department spokesperson tells the Times. "She is scared." Workers had put the top on the 73rd and final floor of the 1,100-foot-tall building just four days before the accident. The site will be closed for two days during an investigation. (In San Francisco, a window washer survived an 11-story plunge.)

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