Deanese Williams-Harris, Caroline Kubzansky – Chicago Tribune
One worker was dead, and another was left in critical condition after falling about nine stories from a scaffold at a construction site of a building for UChicago Medicine, officials said.
Shortly after 12:15 p.m., a construction worker in his mid-20s fatally fell from a scaffold during high winds Thursday, landing about 9 stories to the ground, said Larry Langford, Chicago Fire Department spokesman. A second worker also fell to the ground, and is in critical condition at UChicago Medicine, a few steps away from the site.
Officials said the workers were building a new cancer research center in the 5600 block of South Maryland Avenue.
Police tape blocked off much of the medical complex as university police officers patrolled the stretch of East 57th Street from Cottage Grove Avenue to Drexel.
A group of construction workers and a man who was wearing a suit, lanyard and constrution vest all declined comment at the scene Thursday afternoon.
A man in scrubs and a hospital badge said he had observed a plank of wood missing from the scaffolding on the southwest corner of the southern structure earlier in the day.
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