Worker injured in accident at Sansom Common site

and Ben Geldon A construction worker was thrown from a 15-foot-high lift basket outside Sansom Common yesterday when the top of a U-Haul truck clipped the bottom of his basket, leaving him dangling by his safety harness 10 feet above the ground, police and construction officials said. The worker, 39, who was not seriously injured, was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania by the Philadelphia Fire Department. He was treated and then released at 7 p.m. Police and hospital officials declined to release his name. The 21-year-old driver of the truck pulled over immediately, University Police Lt. Tom Messner said. He was questioned by officers at the scene and released. University Police are still investigating the incident, and the driver could not be reached for comment. The basket was extended over the 3600 block of Walnut Street while the worker was maneuvering the crane off the street, according to Messner. The worker was delivering a crane to the Sansom Common construction site for a construction-equipment rental company, Messner said. The accident, which occurred just after 3 p.m., closed down Walnut Street from 34th to 37th streets until 4:45 p.m. while officials moved the crane off the street. Bob Hoffman, Turner Construction Co.'s site director on the Sansom Common project, said workers had told him that the U-Haul truck "sped around a line of cars held up by a flag man," or a worker who stands in the street while deliveries are in progress to halt oncoming traffic. Messner said that while the truck may have been speeding, there "is no way to tell" because there were no skid marks left on the street. Police have recently begun trying to cut down on speeding down Walnut by placing a radar gun and a large electronic sign to show drivers how fast they are going. The accident is not the first at the 15-month-old construction site. Last February, a worker fell from the fourth story of the building immediately before ceremonies marking the placement of the last steel beam on top of the project. The harness that stopped the worker's fall yesterday -- a pair of belts strapped across both shoulders and then snapped between the legs in a Y-shape -- is a relatively recent requirement for workplace safety, Hoffman said. One construction worker, who would not provide his name, was quick to note the harness' importance. "He's? lucky he's tied up [in the basket]," the worker said of the injured man. Hoffman said Turner was still in the process of gathering the facts of the incident. "I guess you can always use hindsight after an accident [to see what went wrong]," he said. But he added that all necessary safety precautions -- a flagman to stop traffic, as well as the safety harness -- had been followed. "You have to get material on and off the site and you have to use the street," Hoffman said. Still, Hoffman emphasized the accident will precipitate a routine safety review, with changes to construction procedure, if any, being determined within the next week.