A construction worker building a concrete wall at SpaceX’s Starbase site in November was crushed by a large metal support that fell from a crane, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the incident, TechCrunch has learned.
The worker, Eduardo Cavazos, filed a previously unreported lawsuit in November detailing the accident, and is suing SpaceX and one of its contractors for negligence. SpaceX reported the incident to OSHA, and the agency opened a “rapid response investigation,” according to Joanna Hawkins, deputy regional director of public affairs.
Rapid response investigations typically involve OSHA asking an employer for more information before determining if the agency will perform an on-site inspection. Hawkins said OSHA is still waiting for SpaceX’s response to that request.
This is the second known crane-related accident at Starbase this year that OSHA is probing. The agency also opened an investigation into a crane that collapsed at Starbase in late June. It’s still not known if any workers were injured during that accident; neither SpaceX nor Starbase city officials have commented on the collapse, which was caught on livestreamed video by LabPadre.
The crane-related accidents are part of a growing list of incidents at the rapidly expanding launch facility in South Texas as CEO Elon Musk has pushed his company to develop massive rockets that can go to the moon and Mars.
A broken hip, knee, and tibia
Lawyers for Cavazos, a resident of Cameron County, Texas, filed his lawsuit in November just a few days after the accident. They said he was working as a subcontractor of CCC Group, which was hired by SpaceX to construct concrete walls at the Starbase site. On November 15, a crane operator was lifting a “vertical formwork” — which holds wet concrete in place until it dries — when one of the long metal supports “detached” and landed on him, Cavazos’ lawyers claim in the lawsuit.
In an amended petition filed this week, Cavazos’ lawyers claim another CCC Group employee was operating the crane and was seen using a cell phone around the time of the accident. The operator “recklessly lowered” the formwork, causing it to strike the ground and surprising Cavazos and two other workers. The operator then suddenly lifted the formwork up, according to the complaint, which is when the 1,200-pound support struck Cavazos.
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The metal support broke Cavazos’ hip, knee, and tibia, and he suffered other injuries to his neck, head, shoulders, back, and legs. “In all reasonable probability, [Cavazos] has and/or will undergo physical therapy, daily medications, pain management treatment, and/or surgical intervention in an attempt to control the pain caused by the injuries sustained in this incident,” his lawyers wrote in the complaint.
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