3 construction workers rescued after building collapses

One man suffers a broken leg and two more are safe after a warehouse collapses on the West Side Thursday.

Emergency crews were called to an under-demolition refrigeration warehouse off West Broad Street at about 12:39 p.m. Thursday.

Crews were dismantling the building piece by piece and Thursday were working on the roof when the steel structure gave way and started to fold in.

EMS was on scene almost immediately since the firehouse is so close.

Two workers, identified as Rich McHaffie and Shane Wells, were on the roof at the time.

"Two men were trapped on the roof. One [Wells] was physically trapped by roof debris on his leg on the beam. He was hanging there tempoarily," said Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Michael Fowler.

Wells was hanging upside down with his leg pinned between roof debris and a steel beam.

Crews rescued Wells and he was taken to Mount Carmel Medical Center West with a broken leg. He is in stable condition.

"The other [McHaffie] was just trapped on the roof and as soon as we got there, our ladder to him, he scrambled down the ladder," Fowler said.

McHaffie was not injured.

Worker Roger Davis was in a tow motor basket when the framework started to collapse. He was not injured.

The warehouse is behind Fire Station No. 10, and the address on the building is 50 N. Glenwood Ave.

T. Marzetti Co. owns the collapsed building and it housed Midwest Fresh Food, Inc.

Lowendick Demolition Contractors was doing the demolition.

OSHA and the city building inspector will be in charge of the investigation.

NBC4 was told the company had safety personnel on the scene at the time of the collapse and fire officials said the workers were wearing safety harnesses.

So far, it's unclear what went wrong.

"I don't know whether it just fell because they had too much of it off or whether something they removed from the roof caused it to collapse," Fowler said.

Source: Donna Willis & Denise Yost, NBC4i.com