Not even a day after its completion, 4 World Trade Center is back in the news after a construction worker reportedly fell and impaled himself on a piece of metal.
The 37-year-old worker was helping to build the new skyscraper at 150 Greenwich St. when he slipped and fell about 4 to 5 feet at around 1:20 p.m. Tuesday, an FDNY spokeswoman told New York City news outlets.
The man, who suffered a puncture wound to his side, was taken to nearby Bellevue Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. He is expected to live.
“He appears to be in stable, but we have no further details on his condition at this time,” Tishman Construction, the contractor on the site, said in a statement released to the media. A Tishman spokesman was quoted as saying that the worker landed on a small steel rod he was carrying in a pouch.
The fall happened somewhere at the top of the 72-story tower, which is 977 feet tall.
The accident occurred only one day after developer Larry Silverstein and local politicians gathered Monday to celebrate the placement of 4 World Trade Center’s final steel beam.
This is the latest in a series of accidents at the 4 World Trade Center tower. A four foot steel rod fell from the 13th floor and struck the hand of an innocent teenager in May 2011, and a load of steel beams was dropped 40 stories by a crane in February.
The skyscraper is scheduled to be officially completed in the fall of 2013, when the interior of the building will be finished. It will be the second tower completed since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Tower 7 was completed in 2006.
