A construction worker, who described himself as the right hand of the late Stephen Lutz, said the death of his boss could easily have been prevented if Lutz had had an observer.
“If anyone was standing next to him, he could have been warned that he was getting too close to the edge,” Joel Gardner said in a recorded statement given to WorkSafeNB investigators the day after the fatal incident.
“All I saw was the rush of this site,” said Gardner, who worked on the fifth floor, “eight feet above” Lutes, as the two tried to move concrete molds to the site on the morning of January 30, 2017.
Gardner expressed grief and remorse for the loss of Lutz, whom he described as a good man who was easy to work with and understand.
He said he spoke to Lutes at the site around 7:30 a.m., less than four hours before Lutes fell.
He said the father of two spoke of his young children attending a birthday party and going swimming.
Gardner said Lutz, who lived in Upper Coverdale, was exhausted, in part because he drove to work every day “from Moncton” and was under pressure from his employer to get the job done.
“He’s always been tired,” Gardner said in a recording. “He drove from Moncton and had two small children.”
“There was a lot of pressure on Steve,” he said. “I blame all this for not having the boys’ hands,” he said.
The worker felt hurried
The coroner’s investigation began at St. John’s Courthouse on Monday morning with the selection of a five-member jury.
The jury heard that at the time of Lutz’s fall, wooden railings had been removed so that the concrete form could be lifted into place by a crane.
Gardner said he felt as if he had seen Lutz wearing his seat belts, but said workers were often too quick to fasten their seat belts, or there were no good places to fasten them.
Gardner said the pressure came from their employer, Lead Structural Formwork.
In 2019, the company was fined $ 50,000 in connection with Lutes’ death after pleading guilty to occupational health and safety charges for failing to ensure the use of the fall protection system.
Hilton Garden Inn in Fredericton opened in August 2018 (Catherine Harrop / CBC)
Michael Goodwin, another worker who was present that day, said it was a very dangerous job.
“Everything was in a hurry, in a hurry,” Goodwin said. “And if you’re in a hurry, you’ll be wrong.”
Corner Chair Emily Casey asked Goodwin if she was aware of any consequences of not meeting the deadlines.
“I guess you can say you’re afraid of losing your job,” Goodwin said.
Nothing of a criminal nature
The jury also heard Carla Forsythe, then a detective at the Fredericton Police Department’s main criminal service.
She said she responded to the scene that morning and spoke to witnesses. She said there was nothing to suggest that anything criminal had happened.
There was no suggestion that Lutz had been pushed, for example, or that there had been a battle before the incident.
She concluded that this was a tragic incident.
The project was going well, the owner’s son testified
Paul Krevatin said he was a regional manager in New Brunswick for leading structural formwork at the time of the incident and testified that the company was a co-founder of his father.
Crevatin said Lutes was a friend from high school and knew Lutes was busy with the project and agreed to leave his office assignments to do some work.
“I said I would go down and help him,” Krevatin said. “I asked him where I would be most useful and he directed me to the fifth floor.”
Krevatin said he did not see the hot ones fall, but he heard the crane operator say that someone had fallen, and the operator said that he thought they were hot.
“I dropped my tool belt,” said Krevatin, who then rushed to look across the edge of the building, where he could see someone lying on the ground.
When Krevatin reached Lutes, he said he had checked his pulse and noticed that Lutes was not breathing.
“There was a lot of blood from his head and ear,” Krevatin said.
“I did CPR until the ambulance arrived. He was pronounced dead in minutes.”
Krevatin said he started calling first his own father and then other company owners. He was unable to contact his father immediately. He also said he just wanted to get off the site and go see Lutes’ wife and children, then 8 and 10 years old.
But he said police would not allow him to drive in the condition he was in.
Crevatin was asked several questions about whether work was behind schedule and whether workers felt pressured. He said that was not the case.
“I believe we worked within expectations,” Krevatin said. – The work was going very well.
“It wasn’t like we were under arms.”
Crown prosecutor Jeremy Erickson, who questioned witnesses as an adviser to the coroner, reminded Crevatin of something he told a WorkSafeNB employee.
“You said you and Lutes were always pushing,” Erickson said, asking Krevatin to explain what he meant.
Krevatin said that meant that he and Lutz were organized and dynamic, and in that sense they were both “repulsive.”
The investigation resumes on Tuesday morning.
The eight-storey hotel opened its doors in August 2018. It was originally planned to be completed by the end of 2017.
Lead structural formwork has been contracted by the main contractor Lindsay Construction.
Aquilini Properties owns the site.
Add Comment