Herald staff
EVERETT — A Marysville construction worker escaped serious injury Monday when he was struck in the head by a heavy piece of equipment that fell 20 feet into a trench where he was working.
Construction workers identified him as George Miller, 41, who was taken to Providence Everett Medical Center for head cuts. He was later released, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Miller had been wearing a safety hard hat, which apparently deflected much of the blow, workers and fire officials said.
A heavy hook attached to a backhoe’s bucket somehow came detached and plummeted to where Miller had been working in a deep trench being dug for a city sewer project.
"It scared me at first. I saw him drop fast," fellow worker Carl Folland of Marysville said.
Miller works to align new sewer pipe sections and was compacting soil in the bottom of the trench, Everett fire Battalion Chief Roger Westlund said.
The 10 a.m. accident happened in an alley just east of Broadway near Wall Street where Thomco Construction Co. of Arlington is working for the city.
Thomco is engaged in a $1.4 million job, replacing a section of a major sewer trunk line, Public Works Director Tom Thetford said.
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