Gusty winds knocked down a partially constructed mini mart in Cheney and sent a pair of workers to the hospital Tuesday afternoon.
A Maverick mini mart was just starting to take shape on the north side of Cheney, but gusty winds in excess of 35 miles an hour took out one of the new walls and tossed two construction workers to the ground.
The crew from a Utah construction company was still bolting aluminum beam framework into place when the wind caught the east wall of the building. The twisting metal began to fall and then knocked over a fully-raised scissor lift with two men aboard.
"From what we hear a gust of wind came up, kind of shook the scissors lift and the wall which resulted in the scissor left falling over and two guys falling to the ground with it," Cheney Fire Chief Mike Winters said.
Safety harnesses kept the two men from being crushed by the falling lift and fortunately they were tossed onto compacted dirt instead of concrete but both workers were still hurt in the two story drop.
"When we got on the scene they had a few complaints of back pain. We did our assessment and found no obvious life threatening injuries and both were transported to the hospital," Chief Winters said.
While the injured workers were being evaluated their construction colleagues drove in an excavator to keep the remaining wall from falling.
"Well you can look at this and see how it's bent out of shape. I wouldn't doubt that they probably have to start all over again but we called the building department because ultimately it's their call," Chief Winters said.
And the fire chief was right. A short time later the construction crew used that excavator to knock down the remaining wall. They felt it was too windy and the wall just too unstable to dismantle it and so they'll start over later in the week.
Source: Jeff Humphrey, KXLY4