A man is dead following an accident at a construction site in Boston's Seaport District early Thursday morning, authorities confirmed.
Emergency crews were called to the area of Northern Avenue around 6 a.m.
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One person died at the scene, Boston EMS said. Another person was taken to a nearby hospital but is expected to survive.
Boston police identified the man who died as James Chaffee, of Westfield. He was 38.
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Photos from the scene of the accident showed a flatbed truck surrounded by police tape with a pile of granite on the ground beside it. Those heavy slabs are what fell on the person who was killed.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it was notified and is investigating the incident.
Police haven't released any specific details on what may have gone wrong, but investigators were focused on a forklift located alongside the truck on Thursday morning.
The granite slabs appear to have fallen off the flatbed, opposite the forklift.
Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden was at the scene but declined comment out of respect for the victim's family.
Asked about the incident at an appearance Thursday morning, Mayor Michelle Wu said it's too soon to say whether the city will take any action with regard to the specific construction site.
"I don't know the details in this particular incident. OSHA is investigating, and once we know what happened and how, we'll have more information on that," she said.
Wu said her office will be reaching out to all of the related unions to ensure that the city is taking every possible action to keep workers safe.
"These large construction sites are incredibly complex and risky situations all the time, and so we need to ensure that all of the contractors and all of the entities involved, first and foremost, are adhering to safety protocols for workers," she said. "Every bit of care that is going into making sure these buildings are safe for the eventual customers or employees or the person who will be using the building later on when it is ready, that needs to apply to every step in the construction or demolition process."
No further information about the incident was immediately available.
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The fatality is the latest workplace death in the Boston area recently, and comes the day after a 60-year-old contracted overnight security worker at The Country Club in Brookline was found dead by coworkers after apparently falling from a decking area, authorities said.
A worker was killed in March when a floor deck gave way at the Government Center Garage in Boston. Another worker died in October at an under-construction apartment building in East Boston.
Of the 62 workers in Massachusetts who lost their lives on the job in 2021, 15 worked in construction, according to a report released in April by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
