Three workers involved in a collapse of the Kansas city bridge in the city of 2022 have filed separate demands, claiming that the engineers were negligent in their design of false works and that the undue inspections of these temporary supports by another company led to the failure of the bridge.
The three demands were filed on May 1 at the Court of Clay County, Mo., by Kaden Bax, Colton Wells and Braden Birdsong, with the three of them seeking damage not specified by the durable mental health injuries and impacts that they suffered in the accident.
A confidential agreement has already been reached in a lawsuit filed by the family of another worker, Connor R. Ernst, 22, of California, Mo., who drowned in wet concrete in the collapse of the bridge, according to demands.
The demands filed at the County County Circuit of Clay in Liberty, Mo. Each name Crockett Engineering Consultants by Columbia Mo., WSP USA, Inc. of St. Louis and the owner, Clay County, Mo., as defendants.
The project involved the replacement of a dilapidated wooden bridge in the north -east of 148th Street, to the east of Kearney, Mo., with a continuous concrete bridge composed of three extensions. The roof of the bridge was a reinforced concrete slab approximately 12 inches thick, supported by substructure.
The lawsuits claim that on October 26, 2022, “when less than half of the total concrete of the new bridge had been poured, suddenly and without warning, the false work collapsed, sending a river of wet concrete to Carroll Creek along with tons of twisted metal bar and destroyed wood forms.”
The workers were employed by Lehman Construction Co., California, Mo., who hired Crockett Engineering to design the false work.
Lehman is not appointed in demand, but was fined for $ 12,031 by the Health and Work Safety Administration (OSHA) in 2023 in relation to the collapse of the bridge. The penalty was reduced to $ 9,023.
The three workers were at the top of the bridge and fell to the bottom of the cove where they were buried in concrete, according to the lawsuits. Wells was until the chin in wet concrete for 30 minutes; Bax was to the waist and Birdsong was to the neck.
Birdsong, for example, his demand he says, remained in this position: in the darkness of the darkness, unable to move even a finger and almost suffocating -for the wet concrete, for thirty minutes, until the rescue workers found him covered due to broken plywood forms. ”
Among the complaints, the lawsuits claim that Crockett did not create false work enough to support the concrete and that the WSP did not recognize that fake designs were incomplete and inadequate.
“It was predictable that the failure of the false work during the scope of concrete could and cause bodily injuries to the project’s workers,” say the lawsuits.
The lawsuits also claim that Clay’s county knew or should have known the dangerous conditions and that they could have warned, resolved or remedified.
Clay County prosecutor Kevin Graham said he has not seen the demands, but said that “we do not do this kind of work. It is not our experience. That’s why we hire companies to do it.”
Prosecutor Tim Van Ronzelen, who represents Bax, Wells and Birdsong in their respective cases, said that the dresses were presented separately because each suffered different injuries.
Crockett Engineering and WSP did not immediately respond to a comment request on the lawsuits.
