By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
A UCLA construction worker was pinned for nearly an hour Monday
when his Bobcat tractor flipped at the construction site adjacent
to Lot 8.
University police and fire departments and the Los Angeles Fire
Department performed the rescue operation and extricated the man
from the vehicle’s cage around 2:10 p.m.
“It’s kind of a rare occurrence,” said Sgt.
Jeffrey Walton, watch commander for UCPD. “But at
construction sites, it happens.”
The worker, who only suffered minor cuts and bruises, was
treated and released later that day, said UCLA Hospital Spokesman
Alan Eyerly.
A spokesman from Bernard Bros, Inc., the general contractor of
the Environmental Services Facility project, declined to comment at
the scene of the accident.
Monday’s accident, which blocked off portions of
Strathmore Boulevard from Westwood Boulevard to Charles E. Young
Dr. West, was not the first in UCLA’s long history of
construction projects.
A 19-year-old construction worker was crushed to death by a
tractor-trailer in August 1998 as he worked at the De Neve Plaza
site. During construction of Sunset Village and Circle Drive from
1990-94, a worker was killed by electrocution.