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The Daily Texan > University

Dead workers from scaffold collapse identified

By Pierre Bertrand

Daily Texan Staff

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Published: Monday, June 15, 2009

Updated: Monday, June 15, 2009

Security Guard

May-Ying Lam/The Daily Texan

A Rio 21 security guard watches over the site of Wednesday's accident when a scaffold collapsed. Four construction workers were on the scaffold when it gave way, and only one survived.

Authorities released the identities Friday of the three construction workers who died after falling off a scaffold in West Campus.

Last Wednesday, three laborers working on the exterior on a 236-foot-tall high-rise residential tower at 21st and Rio Grande streets fell to their deaths when a scaffold partially collapsed between the 11th and 13th floors. A fourth worker survived by jumping from the scaffold back into the building as the scaffold failed.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the scaffold’s collapse.

The three deceased males were Wilson Joel Irias Cerritos, 31, and Jesus Angel Lopez, 28, from Honduras, and Raudel Ramirez Camacho, 27, from Mexico.

The Workers Defence Project, an Austin-based organization, is preparing to release a report summarizing working conditions for construction workers in the city. The group plans to release their full report Tuesday at Austin City Hall.

An executive summary of the report, released Friday, said 142 construction workers died in Texas in 2007. The summary also mentioned high mortality rates and few benefits among various issues facing construction workers in the city.

Senior Police Officer Veneza Aguinaga, a spokeswoman with the Austin Police Department, said in an e-mail correspondence that police had no more information regarding the incident.

Comments

11 comments
ally
Wed Oct 14 2009 00:52
Steve,
you are a real jerk.
A life lost is tragic regardless of where they are from.
Also, this article just said they were from Honduras and Mexico it didn't say whether they were legal or illegal immigrants. Get your story straight and keep your prick comments to yourself.
Rudy Stefancik, M.D.
Fri Jul 24 2009 21:37
The Las Vegas Sun won a Pulitzer prize this year for investigating similar construction accidents down on the Vegas strip. Since their report came out last year and the state stepped in, there have been no more deaths. Question: Does the Texas OSHA have the cajones (and the funding) to step up and protect workers with frequent onsight inspections or will the carnage be allowed to continue unabated? If you think this involves just the deaths of illegals, you are blind. Better be looking up the next time you walk within a crane's height of a construction project.
Akeela
Wed Jul 15 2009 13:22
I’m thinking that those who do these low-paying, dirty, dangerous jobs are way more deserving of citizenship than are our home-grown dopers, dipsos, and ladrones.
Steve
Fri Jul 3 2009 15:36
All three of them were without doubt ILLEGAL ALIENS, who have no right to be here, using fake documents to steal American jobs. With an over 10% unemployment rate nationwide in the construction industry, we surely do not need to be celebrating the fact that 70% of all construction labor in Austin is foreign born, the bulk of it illegal alien criminal job thieves, lured here by Austin being a Sanctuary City.

It is a proven fact that these criminal illegal alien job thieves push down wages to boot. If we were to get rid of all them, along with their families, we would solve overnight the problem of Black teenage unemployment in Austin, and greatly relieve school overcrowding and scholastic failure, which illegal aliens bring.

Principal Skinner
Wed Jul 1 2009 17:36
Joe: Hey Murry, I heard Kei got run over by a bus today.
Murry: Good riddance. What a tool.

Nelson: Haa Haa!

Disgusted
Mon Jun 29 2009 00:42
It is incredibly disgusting how people can take the unfortunate deaths of human beings to be a joke. Let us be reminded that the comments left on this page are a reflection of how others visiting our newspaper's website may view our university. Perhaps the next time people decide to leave such immature comments they should check their ignorance at the door first...
Paloma
Fri Jun 26 2009 17:44
I am shocked by the lack of humanity of your comments
Paloma
David
Mon Jun 22 2009 09:17
Gravity 3 Mexicans 0
Lia
Fri Jun 19 2009 07:52
How sad. I hope their families were notified. I am sure they were just doing what we are all trying to do - work in order to make a better life for ourselves. Quit with the rude comments; they are unnecessary.
kei
Wed Jun 17 2009 12:21
Good thing we can replace those day laborers at the same place we can replace that broken plywood
Kei
Tue Jun 16 2009 15:04
Hey Murry, pick up 3 more day laborers when you swing by the Home Depot will ya?