The last thing you would expect to happen is to have a wall fall on you while you were inside a building. That happened in this reported case.
Death comes in many forms, and this bizarre case is no exception. A 14-year-old student at a local high school was unexpectedly killed in an accident when a wall fell on him. He was doing pull-ups on the wall in his locker room that had initially been built in 1990.
Even though emergency response crews got to the scene fast, the young boy’s heart stopped before he could be taken to the hospital. He was later pronounced dead.
The accident report did not indicate what possible reasons there may have been for the interior wall to cave in on the boy. The boys in the room were not fooling around or doing anything else that would have caused a wall to fall. There was one other student in the locker room at the time of the cave-in and several others rushed into the room to start removing the heavy cement blocks from the boy’s body.
The police are going to be asking a lot of questions relating to this incident, not the least of which is whether or not the walls of the locker room were regularly inspected, if there had been any leaking or shifting of the building that may have affected the interior wall, and whether there was other work happening in the building that may have affected the wall.
If any of the answers to those questions comes back that the school was aware of other issues in the building that they should have known about and/or should have known would affect supporting walls on the interior, they may well be cited as an at-fault party for their negligence in maintaining the building’s safety. Another issue the investigation will also cover is whether or not the wall was designed and built correctly in the first place with the right kind of materials, and not slapped together with shoddy cement bricks that were not up to building code requirements.
Although it is an odd case, it is considered to be a wrongful death and as such, the boy’s family may wish to consult with legal counsel about what rights they have. Even though this is a difficult thing to consider, it is a wise move for the family, as it does, in some measure, assist with closure and may serve as a lesson to others to keep their buildings maintained with safety in mind.
If you have been in similar situation, or have been injured because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, take the first step in seeking justice by calling an Austin personal injury lawyer. Accidents like this may look like one thing on the surface, but on closer inspection be something else entirely. An Austin personal injury lawyer knows this and will listen as you recount the details of how you sustained the injuries.
Brooks Schuelke is an Austin personal injury attorney with Perlmutter & Schuelke LLP. Contact an Austin injury lawyer at Civtrial.com or (512) 476-4944.
