Company fined following worker’s death at The Vue apartments

The Vue apartments, as seen from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Staff photo

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has issued a $7,600 fine to Houston-based Business Construction Services LLC, the company building The Vue apartments in Fayetteville, following the recent death of a 20-year-old construction worker, reports KNWA.

Brannon Rhine was killed in May when a dirt hole he was working in collapsed, trapping him inside, at the construction site on Parris Avenue just south of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Rhine’s was the first of two deaths in five weeks at the construction site. A Joplin man was electrocuted earlier in June while working to install siding on one of the complexes. An OSHA investigation into that death is still in progress.

The deaths are part of a series of problems at the site which began in March when residents in a nearby complex were displaced by flooding after a sewer line that was missing a cap overflowed. The site was temporarily shut down in April for violations of city fire code, and in June, hazmat crews were dispatched to the area after an estimated 100-200 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled when a tank fell from a forklift.

More: KNWA, NWAOnline