Worker Injured
In Fall from Bridge
By Sandy Vondrasek Cooch

A 51-year-old bridge worker sustained serious injury in Randolph Monday morning after falling 18 feet from a wooden safety rail at the Main Street bridge construction site.

Winterset Construction employee Russell Tinkham, 51, of Groton, suffered seven broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, and two chipped vertebrae, according to Tom Chase, resident engineer for the project. Initial reports indicated that Tinkham did not suffer head or spinal cord injury, Chase said.

White River Valley Ambulance responded and Tinkham was transported to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where he was listed yesterday in fair condition.

Chase said Tinkham had been sitting on a wooden post—part of a temporary rail and walkway system for workers on the outer perimeter of the bridge—when accident occurred.

Bridge workers are not required to wear body harnesses when there is a safety rail in place, Chase said.

The 42-inch-high posts are made of two-by-six-inch timbers, and workers are not supposed to sit on them, Chase indicated.

"He did an unsafe thing," Chase commented.

Tinkham was somewhat fortunate that he fell onto a gravel area that had been filled in to make a platform for a crane. Had he been elsewhere, he might fallen onto the crane rails, or 30 feet down to the rock-strewn riverbed, Chase indicated.

It was the first major accident at the construction site, and it has been reported to state authorities, Chase said.