Workers Injured in Road and Bridge Accidents Across the Country

Jupiter, FL (WorkersCompensation.com) – A construction worker was injured after he fell from a highway bridge in Florida, one of many workers injured in road and bridge accidents this month.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue’s Special Operations and Battalion One unit said it was called to the Jupiter, Fla. US Highway 1 Bridge for a worker who had fallen off the bridge. The victim was rescued on Monday using a large on-scene crane to extract the worker.

Rescue teams prepared the worker to be transferred, then brought them up, over and out of the construction area before lowering him onto a waiting stretcher. The worker was then taken to the Palm Beach Trauma Center by airlift via Trauma Hawk.

"Our thoughts and well wishes are with the worker who fell last night while working on the US 1 Jupiter Bridge project as they receive care at a local trauma center," the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) wrote in a statement on the incident.

The agency said it remained focused on its workers’ health and safety, and thanked all of the agencies that participated in the rescue.

Also on Monday, a worker fell 60 feet off a bridge in Marysville, Washington. According to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), two contractors were working under I-5 when the equipment they were in tipped over which sent one worker into the river below.

Just before 7 p.m., firefighters, and local police, responded to I-5 at milepost 198. The contractors had been working on a project for traffic improvements between Marine View Drive and state Route 529. The project includes a new peak-use shoulder lane for traffic, a new northbound ramp and a new southbound ramp.

Officials said when the bucket the two workers were in flipped, one worker was able to stay inside the bucket and had climbed onto land, while the other had fallen about 60 feet into the water below, officials with Everett Fire Department said. The worker who fell into the water swam to shore and was evaluated by medics. The worker was later transported to a local hospital for treatment.

WSDOT said it is investigating the incident to determine the cause. Traffic had been stopped while emergency responders assisted the workers and helped them to retrieve equipment, but resumed after the incident was resolved.

In Oklahoma, two Department of Corrections employees were involved in a traffic accident that left one dead and the other injured.

Officials said Cpl. Robert Sumner was working at the John Lilley Correctional Center in Boley. He was in a state van driving to guard a prisoner at OU Medical Center when he collided with another John Lilley employee on Highway 62 on July 14. A spokeswoman for the correctional center, Kay Thompson, said the incident was just an accident.

"This was a pure coincidence, freak accident,” said Thompson. “We still don’t know the cause, whether there was an animal involved or whatever happened, we just don’t know.”

Sumner was pronounced dead at the scene, while the other worker, Cpl. Andrew Freppon, was injured. The two man worked together and had graduated from ODOC training together in 2023.

ODOC Director Steven Harpe said the accident was hard to wrap one’s head around. The department said it was making chaplains available to John Lilley employees for counseling.

And in Nebraska, the Nebraska Department of Transportation is calling for action after two workers have been killed in work zones and another has been seriously injured in the last year.

NDOT Director Vicki Kramer said all three of the crashes were the result of distracted driving.

“We went close to a decade without a Nebraska DOT worker hurt in a work zone,” she said. “To have three major incidents within a year is absolutely appalling.”

In June, Kramer said distracted driving and driving without a seat belt were leading causes of incidents on Nebraska roadways, and that her department would continue to work with legislators to protect transportation workers.

“We’ve got to do something,” Kramer said. “We’ll continue to work with our lawmakers so that they understand what the opportunities are in front of them and what some of those best practices across the country in terms of creating safer environments for driving.”

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