The U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a roofing accident that occurred Thursday in Lincoln, New Hampshire, in which two men working for a Madison, Maine, company were injured, one severely, according to the company’s owner.
Maine Roof Solutions owner Wilfred Brousseau confirmed Friday evening that Micah Nichols and Jacob Harrington were the men injured in the accident and that Nichols was the one who was most seriously injured.
The accident happened around 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Lodge at Lincoln Station on Main Street in Lincoln, according to Lincoln Fire Chief Ron Beard.
Beard said in a phone interview Friday that the two men who were injured were working for Maine Roof Solutions, which was under contract with the condominium association to replace roofs on all three sections or wings of the building. The crew has been working at the site four or five months, he said.
“I can confirm that two gentlemen did fall off a roof,” Beard said. He estimated the ages of the injured men as early to mid-30s.
He said one of the men was flown by helicopter to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, with “numerous injuries,” and shortly after he arrived at the hospital he went into surgery. A spokeswoman at Dartmouth-Hitchcock said Micah Nichols “is not on a list of people we have any information about at this time.”
Jacob Harrington suffered a compound arm fracture and was taken by Linwood Ambulance Service to Speare Memorial Hospital in Plymouth, New Hampshire. A spokeswoman at Speare Memorial reported Friday that Harrington was in good condition.
“I wish it didn’t happen,” Brousseau said. “It was an avoidable accident. Everything was in place for it to not happen. That’s why we spend so much money on safety equipment. They were obviously not using it as intended or instructed.”
Brousseau said Nichols started to slip on the roof and Harrington went to rescue him and they both fell off the roof, which was about 43 feet high. Brousseau said he was on site at the time, but he was on another side of the building.
He said he does not know why Nichols and Harrington were not using the safety equipment.
OSHA spokesman James Lally confirmed Friday that Maine Roof Solutions is the employer whose workers were injured. Lally said in a phone interview that OSHA has opened an inspection because two workers fell from a roof in Lincoln, New Hampshire, but OSHA does not comment on a case until it is closed, and that could take about six months.
Besides the Lincoln Fire Department and Linwood Ambulance, the Lincoln Police Department also responded to a report of the accident, according to Beard.
A person who answered the phone Friday at the Police Department referred questions to the Fire Department, which investigates such accidents.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
Twitter: @AmyCalder17
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