Four people were hurt when a building under construction in De Pere collapsed shortly before nine o’clock Tuesday morning.

Eight workers were inside and outside the Snap Fitness building, just north of the Wal-Mart on Scheuring Road. Four people were on the roof and four were inside at the time of the collapse.

Three of the men inside walked out on their own. The fourth, John Vandenlangenberg, 40, of De Pere, is in critical condition after he was trapped under a pile of collapsed wood. Rescuers were able to pull him out and took him to St. Vincent Hospital.

“He was right on this edge, on the west side of the building. It appears the trusses had come down on top of him,” Officer Dennis Gladwell, De Pere Police Department, said.

“He was trapped, and with some minor manipulation — we didn’t have to use the jaws or air bags, he was just entangled — and with some minor movement our crews were able to slide him out,” De Pere Fire Chief Robert Kiser said.

The other three men were treated for minor injuries at Aurora BayCare and released. They were identified as Richard Nickel, 43, of Pulaski; Gary Vandenlangenberg, 40, of Green Bay; and Rod Benesh, 25, of De Pere.

We’re told the four people on the roof rode out the collapse and slid down the roof to safety. They were not hurt.

“They were actually able to make the slide down as the building was collapsing. They were able to just follow the trusses down and they were able to walk away,” Officer Gladwell said. “They said it was a sudden reaction. They just took the ride, is what it was.”

De Pere police said the injured men were employees of Port City Structures of Green Bay, Nickel Electric Inc. of Green Bay, and Snap Fitness of De Pere.

OSHA, state, and local inspectors are trying to determine why the building collapsed. The building was about halfway completed.

The De Pere city building inspector, Dave Hongisto, said a preliminary examination doesn’t point to a specific cause.

“I’ve done this for 24 years, I’ve never seen anything like this before, so it’s new. I’m just sort of looking at it in awe, trying to decipher what it possibly could be. But again, it’s preliminary to try and speculate what the reasons could be,” Hongisto said.

Hongisto told Action 2 News the building had not reached a point yet where it needed to be inspected.

The investigation is officially in the hands of the federal investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. We’re told OSHA won’t comment until its investigation is completed. We don’t know how long that will take.

Source

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 2:46 am and is filed under Building Construction, General News. Tags: Aurora, Aurora BayCare, Condition, construction, Dave Hongisto, De Pere, De Pere police, De Pere Police Department, Dennis Gladwell, Gary Vandenlangenberg, Green Bay, John Vandenlangenberg, Nickel Electric Inc., Occupation, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Pere Fire, Police Department, Port City Structures, Richard Nickel, Robert Kiser, Rod Benesh, Scheuring Road, Snap Fitness building, St. Vincent Hospital, Wal-Mart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.