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Police reconstruct scene of fatal bridge accident

By: Jacqueline Koch
(Contact)

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Staff Photo by Meghan Brown -- A Seminole Equipment worker embraces his co-worker after confirming that another worker was killed today on the South Crest Road overpass on Interstate 24. A second worker was injured and taken to the hospital.

Video: Fatal accident at Ridge Cut bridge

Police officers are working to reconstruct the scene of an accident that left one man dead and another injured this afternoon.

About 12:45 p.m., two Seminole Equipment workers were hanging from cables from the South Crest Road bridge over Interstate 24 doing bridge repair work, Chattanooga Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Jerri Weary said.

She said the cable went slack and dropped the men toward the interstate. While they tried to raise themselves, a tractor-trailer heading west struck the men, swinging them like a pendulum up onto the bridge, Sgt. Weary said.

One worker was dead at the scene and another was taken to Erlanger hospital with critical head injuries, as well as a broken arm and lacerations, she said.

Bill Rinios, a Seminole employee, said he was trying to raise the men on the cable when the truck hit.

“It was pretty fast,” Mr. Rinios said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. We (are) careful so much.”

For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.

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