Engineer: Army is to blame for construction worker’s death at new Beaumont hospital site

An engineer alleges the Army is to blame for the on-the-job death of a construction worker at the site of the new William Beaumont Army Medical Center being built.

Andrew Wilkerson, employed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said for months he warned his superiors there would be a tragedy if serious safety violations were not corrected.

“I brought up there is a chance of catastrophic collapse for not following the plan,” said Wilkerson in an interview. ABC-7 located Wilkerson after following a paper trail of government documents related to the construction site.

“That did not have to happen. It really angered me because we knew better and we could have done something about it. The Corps of Engineers failed him, from my perspective, because we are in charge,” added Wilkerson.

Steel worker Jesus Moreno died at the nearly billion dollar construction site last week. Federal authorities have not said how he died but a fellow construction worker who did not want to be identified because he has not been authorized to speak on the situation, said Moreno was welding when he fell off his harness – a detail corroborated by Wilkerson.

“He was preheating some steel,” Wilkerson said. “They have to preheat steel to 250 degrees before they start welding operations and the heat – the torch or the steel – melted the nylon strap and he fell off. That platform where he was standing to do the welding that was not part of the fall protection plan – that was not an engineered approved system.” According to Wilkerson, he warned the Corps of that kind of unauthorized platform before.

Wilkerson told ABC-7 he was in charge of overseeing steel erection at the site for the Army Corps of Engineers from April to November last year and one of his main duties was ensuring the contractor followed a “fall protection plan,” which are guidelines to protect workers from falling when erecting structural steel.

Wilkerson said he witnessed and documented hundreds of safety violations.

“Every day I was on the site at least six hours per day and it was constant. Guys would be up on ladders and didn’t have fall protection on. They’d be walking on beams and wouldn’t be properly tied off,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson’s safety concerns are documented in emails with his supervisors reviewed by ABC-7. In late October, Wilkerson even wrote up his boss, a Corps of Engineers Construction Manager, for a safety violation. In part of the email, Wilkerson wrote, “This is about safety and the intent is to save your life and not to disrespect or make you look bad. Why do we have to fight about this?”

“I disagree completely with your assessment of the situation. Your implications that anyone has tried to sweep anything under the rug are unfounded,” his supervisor replied.

“I was the engineer out on site and the eyes and ears and I saw everything. And I would write them up for it. I wouldn’t cut any corners. They hated me,” Wilkerson said.

The situation escalated in late August when Wilkerson said the construction stopped for three weeks to address safety and construction concerns. “At the meeting they said there are issues, we’ll fix them but after three weeks of the shutdown, they (the contractor) sent in this letter saying there’s no problems.” The Corps of Engineers would not comment on whether the work stopped.

Concerned for his job, Wilkerson said he forwarded the letter from the contractor saying Wilkerson’s safety concerns were wrong to the Corps of Engineers legal counsel, a move Wilkerson’s supervisor reprimanded him for.

A discussion over the letter was captured by Wilkerson on his cell phone on September 20th, months before Moreno’s death. “You know that I told you that and I want to know why the hell you can’t follow a simple instruction. That is indicative of a serious problem. You stay out of this. You do not do anything about it. You do not contact anyone about it. This is my address to answer,” Wilkerson’s supervisor is heard saying.

“I told you I could never live with myself if something happened – if some iron worker fell because some connection wasn’t done properly. I told you that. I said I don’t feel right about this,” Wilkerson is heard telling his supervisor on the recording.

After the recorded conversation, Wilkerson blew the whistle about the alleged safety violations to Congressman Beto O’Rourke, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Army investigators.

ABC-7 has confirmed OSHA is investigating both Moreno’s death and Wilkerson’s safety concerns he reported last fall.

In November, the Corps of Engineers removed Wilkerson from the project, transferring him to a desk job, saying he was insubordinate.

“They claim that an order was given not to go out on the decks and I went up there. Even my own quality assurance team could go up there but I couldn’t go up there. And it was my job. I was overseeing structural steel. That’s the cost of being a whistleblower. People are going to hate you. They’re going to trump up stuff,” Wilkerson said.

“My office has an active case regarding allegations of unsafe conditions at the WBAMC construction site. We have been in contact with the appropriate authorities who are investigating these allegations,” wrote Congressman O’Rourke in an email.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a statement when ABC-7 sought comment.

“The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) takes the allegations related to the Fort Bliss hospital project very seriously. The Commander of the Fort Worth District, USACE, directed an investigation to determine the validity of the allegations. The Army Criminal Investigation Division and OSHA are also conducting investigations into these allegations. While we cannot specific comment due to the ongoing investigations, we can state that there were no allegations of instability of the hospital structure made by a structural engineer and that the hospital building is structurally safe. The alleged safety deficiencies were in reference to the erection of the structural steel and not to the type of work being performed by the worker who suffered the fatal fall,” wrote Randy Cephus, Deputy Public Affairs Officer.

The contractor on the project never returned ABC-7’s phone calls.