View of the ongoing construction of the arches for the I-395 signature bridge in Miami on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024.
Pedro Portal
pportal@miamiherald.com
A construction worker who was killed Monday after falling from an overpass onto Biscayne Boulevard was working at the same site where six workers were injured in January, according to officials.
The male construction worker, who was not identified, fell around 4 a.m. from the overpass of Interstate 395, landing 20 feet below, Florida Highway Patrol spokesperson Alex Camacho said. He died on scene.
The man was part of a crew working on an approximately $866 million project led by the Florida Department of Transportation and the Greater Miami Expressway involving changes to I-395, I-95 and the Dolphin Expressway, which includes a new “signature bridge” in downtown Miami, according to the project website. The contractor is the Archer Western-de Moya Joint Venture.
Two months ago, six construction workers were injured at the same project site after a concrete beam broke at 1490 NW Third Ave., according to officials.
Firefighters found that the beam had broken off and toppled, throwing the workers roughly 30 feet and trapping one inside a concrete formwork platform. The Jan. 16 incident, which left five workers critically injured and one seriously injured, happened near the I-395 bridge but did not involve the bridge structure or any portion of the road open to traffic. As of Tuesday, five of the workers had been released from the hospital and one was still being treated, according to FDOT spokesperson Maria Rosa Higgins Fallon.
The man who fell to his death Monday was working at the same Archer Western-de Moya construction site, Higgins Fallon confirmed.
Archer Western-de Moya did not respond to two voicemails from the Miami Herald requesting comment about the construction site incidents this week.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration opened an inspection case regarding possible fall hazards at the construction site the day after the January incident. That case remains open.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there was no publicly available report from OSHA regarding Monday’s incident. The exact address or coordinates of where the death occurred were also unavailable.
Higgins Fallon said FDOT is “deeply saddened” by Monday’s death and sends condolences to the man’s friends and family.
“While construction zones are a high-risk environment, safety is non-negotiable and will not be compromised,” Higgins Fallon said. “FDOT immediately halted all work on this job to ensure the contractor and crews are committed to the highest level of safety possible, as the department demands it on every project.”
Workers were performing some limited drainage tasks Tuesday but “everything else” has stopped, Higgins Fallon said.
FDOT has “demanded” that the Archer Western-de Moya Joint Venture fully cooperate with investigating agencies, conduct a thorough internal review and develop a corrective action plan to help prevent future incidents, Higgins Fallon said.
The Archer Western-de Moya group has previously faced inspection over possible safety violations at the project site for the I-395 bridge.
In February 2023, the group was fined $15,625 for a “serious citation” at Northwest Third Avenue near Northwest 14th Street, according to OSHA records. A serious violation means the workplace hazard could cause an accident resulting in death or physical harm, unless the employer didn’t know or couldn’t have known of the issue.
That citation stemmed from an incident on Aug. 23, 2022, during which construction workers were exposed to striking or crushing hazards when two aerial lifts were used for an operation, which was not allowed by the equipment manufacturer, a violation detail said.
Archer Western-de Moya Group Joint Venture contested the penalty. The case remains open, OSHA records show.
