Sawyer D’Argonne / sdargonne@summitdaily.com
A tragedy played out at a worksite in Frisco on Thursday afternoon after a construction worker died on the job following an apparent cardiac event and fall from the third floor scaffolding.
The man was identified as 44-year-old Jamie Garcia Manriquez of Aurora, according to the Summit County Coroner’s Office.
At about 5 p.m. on Feb. 21, officers with the Frisco Police Department were dispatched to the worksite at 208 Galena St. — an in-the-works townhome development known as the Estates on Galena — after a report that a man fell off of the scaffolding and was unconscious but breathing.
On scene, the officers discovered Manriquez laying on his back with his head up against the east side of the building on the snow. The officers also noticed that the scaffolding on the third story of the building had fallen on one side, and was hanging at an angle about 10 feet above where Manriquez was laying, according to a report from the Frisco Police Department.
Another construction worker at the site told police that Manriquez was working on the third story atop a pump jack, a common type of scaffolding used in residential construction. The man said that Manriquez slipped and fell off the pump jack and hit the ground. He was not wearing any sort of harness or fall protection, and was on the ground for about 20 minutes before the arrival of Frisco officers, according to the witness.
Officers on scene said that they couldn’t get a response from Manriquez following verbal and physical attempts. One of the officers assessed Manriquez for breathing and a pulse, and discovered that he wasn’t breathing. Officers removed Manriquez from the wall, cut off his shirt and attached an automated external defibrillator (AED) to his chest. The AED advised the officers not to shock Manriquez, so they continued administering CPR until emergency medical personnel arrived on scene.
Manriquez was transported to St. Anthony Summit Medical Center where he passed away. Of note, the Summit County Coroner’s Office believes that the fall was not the cause of Manriquez’s death. Instead, the office flagged the cause of death as heart failure due to cardiac disease, and cited the manner of death as natural, according to preliminary autopsy results.
At the time of his fall, Manriquez was working construction on the Estates on Galena, a series of new townhomes currently being erected by Town Centre, Ltd. behind the Loaf ‘N Jug on Main Street. Town Centre owner Larry Feldman said that Manriquez was attached to a subcontractor working on the project, and noted that he met with Manriquez’s family on Thursday evening after his death.
“It’s a tragic event, and we’re doing everything we can to comfort the family,” said Feldman. Feldman continued to say that this is the first time a worker has died on one of his company’s work sites in almost 40 years of operation in Summit County.
Felix Turrubiartes of Felix Framing Inc., a subcontractor working on the townhomes, confirmed that Manriquez was hired as an independent subcontractor to assist on the project.
Herb Gibson, an area director with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said that pump jack failures and falls are typically unusual, and that workers are not required to wear safety harnesses while operating them.
“My heart goes out to his family,” said Chief Tom Wickman of the Frisco Police Department. “It’s a terrible thing.”