Falling Metal at the Trump Parc Site: I'm Angry

What the heck?!??!? I knew this was going to happen! I'll post more this weekend, but I KNEW something was going to go wrong at Trump Parc. I see that crane teetering every damn day on the way to work. Guys, we are sitting freaking ducks. I am going to avoid Washington Blvd. from now on so I am not killed by falling debris. Any of us could have been hit by that! Screw you, Trump Parc.

Article: Driver injured as metal falls from Trump Parc
By Jeff Morganteen Stamford Advocate 05/23/2008

STAMFORD - A 10-pound piece of metal fell 25 stories from the Trump Parc construction site Wednesday morning, ripping through a truck's cab and striking the driver in the right shoulder, police said.

The piece of construction material left a 6-inch-wide hole of mangled metal and torn insulation in the middle of the Crystal Rock water delivery truck's roof. The driver, a 34-year-old Monroe man, suffered minor injuries. He was waiting at a red light on Broad Street, about to turn left onto Washington Boulevard at about 7:30 a.m., when the metal smashed through the truck, police said.

"A foot more to the left and it would have hit him in the head," said Rick Macari, location manager at the Crystal Rock office on Long Ridge Road. "The important thing is he's OK."

The driver was treated and released from Stamford Hospital three hours later, according to police spokesman Lt. Sean Cooney.

"He's lucky to be alive," Cooney said. Police and Macari would not provide the driver's name.

A compliance officer from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has been investigating the accident since shortly after it occurred, said Robert Kowalski, area director of the administration's Bridgeport office. Kowalski said he could not provide details about the accident's cause because it is still under investigation.

Trump Parc, the 34-story glass-and-steel tower at Broad Street and Washington Boulevard, will house 170 luxury condominium units; it has been under construction since last May. F.D. Rich Co., one of the building's owners and developers, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

An official from the tower's builder, George A. Fuller Co., said the company is looking into the incident and still awaiting details from its own investigation, said Chief Operating Officer Paul Slaney.

Mayor Dannel Malloy, who in March called for more construction safety after a crane collapsed in New York City, said the city will aid Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigators if needed. "Hopefully, the contractor is sitting down with the supervisor and having some major discussions about this," Malloy said.

The fallen object appeared to be a piece of bracing used when construction crews pour concrete, Cooney said. Similar objects were found caught in the construction site's safety net, Cooney said, but one must have fallen through or missed the net. "It's par for the course for the smaller pieces of debris," Cooney said. "Little pieces come off, but nothing that would cause any damage. This is the first incident of this degree that I'm aware of." After the driver was hit by the object, he approached a police officer directing traffic at the site, who saw the hole in the truck's cab, Cooney said.

Macari said he saw the oblong metal object on the cab's floor when he visited the accident. "Something like this you never expect to happen to you," said Macari, who visited the accident Wednesday morning. "What are the odds?"