{"id":186582,"date":"2026-05-07T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/186582\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T21:54:09","slug":"contractor-dies-after-falling-through-drop-ceiling-at-pennsylvania-movie-theater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/186582\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractor dies after falling through drop ceiling at Pennsylvania movie theater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:WHTM;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc27.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"WHTM\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"fill\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"position:absolute;height:100%;width:100%;left:0;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/lo\/mysterio\/api\/232C1E841BC0BB863E0E9B74B574D5BADEBDCEDD7912DF6C56EBCD799BAD61E9\/subgraphmysterio\/resizefill_w0_h40;quality_80;format_webp\/\"\/><\/a>Thu, May 7, 2026 at 7:13 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"976\" height=\"649\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_whtm_articles_985\/bdd03336327c1502ba65509186ed2367.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Contractor dies after falling through drop ceiling at Pennsylvania movie theater<\/p>\n<p>BERKS COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) \u2014 A contractor fell to his death at a Berks County theater Wednesday, according to the coroner.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Franklin, 71, of Florida, fell about 50 feet through a drop ceiling at the IMAX theater located at 30 N 2nd St. in Reading around 11:30 a.m., Berks County Coroner Matthew Stitzel said.<\/p>\n<p>An autopsy is scheduled for Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Franklin was an independent contractor who was working on renovations at the time. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration did respond to the scene, Stitzel noted.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"slk:Close;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"#sailthru-signup-widget\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Thanks for signing up!<\/p>\n<p>Watch for us in your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe Now<\/p>\n<p>SIGN UP NOW<\/p>\n<p>The Reading Police Department and the Reading Fire Department assisted the coroner\u2019s office at the scene.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc27.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">\u00a0For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thu, May 7, 2026 at 7:13 PM UTC Contractor dies after falling through drop ceiling at Pennsylvania movie&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[349,83206,83205,83208,83207,77180,539,28,30,29,736,6426,1306,83209],"class_list":["post-186582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-berks-county","tag-drop-ceiling","tag-imax-theater","tag-independent-contractor","tag-matthew-stitzel","tag-occupational-safety-and-health-administration","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-reading","tag-reading-fire-department","tag-reading-police-department","tag-robert-franklin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}