EDMONDS, Wash. — Authorities are investigating after a 38-year-old man died on an Edmonds construction site Wednesday afternoon.
Edmonds police said before 2 o’clock crews were working on an expansion project at the Swedish Hospital campus. They were moving utility lines.
One of the construction workers was in a ditch working with a compressed air tool. He was electrocuted when he made contact with one of those lines. The man died at the scene.
Detectives said the incident appears to be a workplace accident, but one that took out power on parts of the Swedish campus and surrounding apartments.
The Snohomish County medical examiner will determine the cause and manner of death.
Officials said 890 customers were without power and the outage lasted 35 minutes. A spokesman for Swedish said in a statement some of the power loss on campus lasted a hour and 45 minutes.
“This is a tragic circumstance for me personally, for our company,” said Sellen Construction CEO Bob McCleskey. “Safety is the most important thing, and somehow we failed today. We’re going to find out why.”
OSHA’s website shows Sellen has only two minor violations in the last five years. They are involved in many big projects around Seattle, including the construction of the new Amazon headquarters.
KIRO
