A 35-year-old iron worker on the Virginia Department of Transportation's Springfield Interchange Project was killed in an accident on site on Saturday, April 9.
According to project manager Larry Cloyed, Darren Havermale of West Virginia, a foreman with Williams Steel, the steel contractor for the seven-phase, seven-year project, was killed while working overnight in a man-lift installing large beams to form part of a bridge connecting I-395 South to I-the Outer Loop of 495 East.
"This was a particularly difficult tragedy. Everything was going well, and we all thought we were working safely," said Cloyed. "When you lose a foreman, it really wrecks a crew, and iron workers are a particularly close-knit group."
Cloyed said both VDOT and the Department of Labor are still conducting investigations into the particulars of the accident, but details reveal that Havermale was working in the lift, 70 feet in the air, in proximity to a steel beam when his head became "pinched" between the man-lift cage and the beam. He was working on the splice where two beams come together. According to Cloyed, the accident took place around 2 a.m., when work on that portion of the night was winding down. Havermale was not breathing when he was brought to the ground, and Cloyed said multiple attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. After a 45-minute delay for a police investigation, work was completed for the night, since the beams that Havermale was working on were only being held in place by cranes and needed to be stabilized to reopen the roads below.
Cloyed said no beam work involving steel workers is scheduled for this weekend, and grief counseling is being offered to members of Havermale's crew, as well as VDOT employees.
"Our guys have known him for years. They've been up in baskets many times with him," he said of Havermale, whose brother Ernie was a crew supervisor on the project. Cloyed said Darren Havermale had worked in Springfield on Phases II and III of the project, which took place in 1999. This was his first time back since then. According to Cloyed, this is the fourth fatality on the Interchange Project, and the first since 2002.