MINNESOTA TRANSPORTATION DISTRICT 6, STATE OF

Employee drowns in river after fall from bridge scaffold

On October 21, 1994, Employee #1, a senior DOT highway technician, went under th e I-90 bridge at Dresbach, MN, to inspect the mill thickness of recently applied paint. The bridge was being painted by a subcontractor for the state Department of Transportation as part of a lead abatement project that had been in progress for two years. That morning the painting crew had finished painting a section j ust west of the state line, and had shut down for lunch. A large underhung scaff old, which had a working platform that was 55 ft above the 28 ft deep river, had been used to gain access to the underside of the bridge. The scaffold was going to be moved, and some cable railings had been removed. Two employees of the sub contractor were operating a tug boat in the Mississippi River when they saw some thing fall into the river, and saw Employee #1 trying to swim toward the Wiscons in side. He went under the water and drowned. Employee #1 was not wearing a life vest nor did he have on a safety belt and lanyard. Life vests and safety belts were found in the tool box on his truck. Employee #1 was found the next morning at 9:05 a.m., several hundred feet down river.