Lawsuit filed after deadly crane collapse at Houston Cement Plant
HOUSTON - It happened at Sesco Cement Plant at Wingate and 75th Street after a crane apparently crushed two cement trucks, killing one worker.
Even though a horrible storm was forecasted to hit Houston last Thursday, the lawsuit alleges it was business as usual at Sesco Cement Plant.
Strong winds and lightning toppled cranes.
"Multiple cranes were blown over at this construction site, not just the yellow crane that fell on our client's vehicle, but multiple other cranes," said attorney Kevin Haynes with the Kherkher Garcia Law Firm.
A cement mixer working near Crosby Ware was killed when the crane came crashing down.
According to the lawsuit, Crosby miraculously survived, but suffered catastrophic injuries to his head, neck, and back.
"The cab of his cement truck was crushed by some steel lines associated with the crane," Haynes said. "Part of the crane also hit the cement truck."
The lawsuit accuses the four defendants, Sesco Cement Corp Agri-Systems d/b/a ASI Industrial Lampson International and McCray Crane and Rigging, of gross negligence and conscious decision to value profits over safety.
"The winds that were coming through that part of Houston in the Ship Channel were very high. They were straight line winds," said Haynes. "In fact, in Galena Park, winds were as high as 90 to 100 miles an hour. We're talking hurricane force winds. They would have known long before those level of winds came in to shut things down."
Sesco Cement declined to comment. McCray Crane and Rigging also declined to comment saying, "We had no involvement in this accident."
We've yet to hear back from Agri-systems d/b/a ASI industrial.
Lampson International sent FOX 26 a prepared statement saying, "First and foremost, our sincere thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured parties. With regard to the cause of the incident, which is still under investigation, it appears that the sudden and unexpected extremely high winds caused the crane booms to yield under the extreme wind pressures. Our crane was under a bare lease agreement with the user of the crane who had the complete care, custody and control of the crane. We had no personnel on site at the time of the incident, we were not operating the crane nor had any involvement with the use of the crane and there is no indication that there was anything deficient with the crane. It simply appears that this very unfortunate and completely unexpected incident was an act of nature. We have no further comment at this time."