The death of a construction worker last September was an accident, a jury recently held. The man’s death happened at a roadside construction site on Illinois Route 8 near Legion Road.
An Illinois State Trooper said that the man and the bulldozer operator had been working together all day before the fatal construction accident. The man suffered catastrophic personal injuries after being crushed by the bulldozer.
The bulldozer operator’s job was to spread dirt over the road and the deceased construction worker would go back and check whether the grade of the dirt was accurate.
“They had been moving dirt and grading dirt all day without any problems,” the state trooper told investigators. “It was the last few passes of the day. The bulldozer operator said he backed up to get more dirt and looked over his left shoulder when he felt the machine jar.”
Although the deceased construction worker did have trace amounts of marijuana in his system, the Tazewell County coroner said the amounts were too small to have played a roll in this unfortunate accident.
Fatal accidents such as this one are often covered under the Illinois’ Wrongful Death Act. This law allows family members of a deceased construction worker to recover economic damages such as lost wages that the construction worker would have earned throughout his or her career.