Airport sign kills boy: Faulty construction to blame?

Airport sign kills boy: A 10-year old boy died after an airport sign fell on a family of four. The boy's mother is in critical condition. The sign was in a newly renovated section of the Birmingham airport.

A sign in a newly renovated section of the Birmingham airport fell on a family Friday, killing a 10-year boy and injuring other family members.

Deputy Coroner Derrick Perryman said 10-year-old Luke Bresette was pronounced dead at Children's of Alabama. Two other children were being treated there, and the mother, Heather Bresette, was taken to University Hospital, where spokeswoman Nicole Wyatt said she was in critical condition. Jefferson County Deputy Coroner Derrick Perryman confirms the family is from Overland Park, Kan.

Firefighters estimated the arrival-departure sign weighed 300 to 400 pounds.

Albert Osorio, 46, of Birmingham told al.com that he was close by when the sign fell. He said a loud boom was followed by screams from the family and witnesses. Then he and five other passers-by lifted off the sign.

"The whole thing flipped down on those kids. It took all of us here to stand it up," he said.

Orsorio said that from what he saw, the sign appeared to be attached to the wall "only with liquid nails," which is a caulking-like substance similar to heavy duty hot glue.

Airport spokeswoman Toni Herrera-Bast said she couldn't confirm how the sign was mounted to the wall. She said it happened about 1:30 p.m. Friday in a pre-security area of the airport. The airport continued operating while rescue workers tended to the family.

The airport completed the first phase of a more than $201 million modernization effort and opened newly renovated concourses last week.

Mayor William Bell issued a statement saying the city offered its full support to the Airport Authority in investigating the accident.

The Birmingham airport tragedy is reminiscent of a new-construction incident in Boston in 2006. A woman was killed and another injured when a 3-ton concrete panel fell on a car traveling through a newly constructed tunnel leading to Logan International Airport. The tunnel was closed for a year, and inspections found 242 potentially dangerous bolt fixtures and epoxy used to hold the ceiling tiles. Several lawsuits were filed against the construction company and the epoxy manufacturer.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Airport sign kills boy: Faulty construction to blame?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0323/Airport-sign-kills-boy-Faulty-construction-to-blame
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe