2 Metro Rail Workers Hurt in Accident in Deep Tunnel

Two Metro Rail workers were injured Thursday afternoon when a cable snapped between a construction locomotive and a massive piece of digging equipment it was hauling down one of the tunnels being dug for the city’s new subway system.

The men, whose names were not immediately available, were lifted by crane from the floor of the 80-foot-deep subway at 1st and Hill streets in Los Angeles and taken to County-USC Medical Center for treatment, according to Greg Acevedo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles City Fire Department.

“One was a minor injury and the other was a possible broken leg,” Acevedo said.

The two workers were part of a team that had just completed digging the second of two Metro Rail tunnels between the Civic Center and Pershing Square, according to officials of the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

The crew was hauling a piece of bulldozer-sized excavation equipment down the tunnel about 4 p.m. when the tow cable parted, knocking the workers to the ground, RTD spokeswoman Andrea Greene said.

Construction workers removed beams covering the excavation for the subway’s Civic Center station, creating a 20-by-20-foot hole through which they hoisted the two men to the surface with a crane, officials said.

The tunnel is part of the first, 4.4-mile phase of the Metro Rail subway running from Union Station to Wilshire Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

In August, a Metro Rail construction worker suffered a broken leg when a pipe being lowered into a tunnel site slipped and struck him.

Two other workers were slightly injured in May when part of a large tunnel-digging machine collapsed as it was being dismantled.

Greene said no other serious injuries have occurred on the project since Metro Rail construction began in September, 1986.