SAN DIEGO – A block-long wooden pedestrian walkway collapsed at an East Village construction site during the busy noon lunch hour Thursday, injuring 16 people, three critically, authorities said.
NANCEE E. LEWIS / Union-Tribune
Police and fire personnel survey the damage after a walkway collapses at an East Village building under construction, injuring 16 people, including three critically, authorities said..
ANGELICA MARTINEZ / Union-Tribune
The collapse at the three-story "Studio fifteen" affordable housing project occurred about noon at 15th Street and Imperial Avenue, about two blocks east of Petco Park.
The walkway had been put up next to a three-story building under construction at 15th Street and Imperial Avenue, about two blocks east of Petco Park.
It was not known what caused the walkway to fall, according to an investigator with the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration who arrived at the site shortly after the accident.
Ariel Medina, 34, of Rancho Peñasquitos, was on her way to the bank when she stopped in the walkway to talk to a friend. She said it swayed, then fell, striking her in the back.
Medina estimated about 20 people were inside the walkway, designed to protect pedestrians from debris falling from the construction site. She said there was momentary chaos as people screamed and ran.
Her friend was more seriously injured and taken to a hospital.
“I've never seen a building fall like that ... ,” Medina said, as she was being treated by paramedics on the sidewalk. “The whole darn walkway fell down.”
Maurice Luque, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman, said none of the injured was construction workers.
Fifteen of the injured were transported by nine ambulances to four hospitals, including Scripps Mercy Hospital and UCSD Medical Center, both in Hillcrest. Their ages range from 16 to 64, but most are in their mid-40s and mid-50s, Luque said. Those in critical condition were two women, ages 57 and 60, and a 50-year-old man, he said.
Dr. Michael J. Sise, medical director of the trauma unit at Scripps Mercy Hospital, said his facility handled two of the critical patients, a man and a woman. Sise said one suffered a broken back and one had a fractured leg.
Sise said he had talked to officials at all the hospitals, and all the patients were expected to survive.
Luque said the general contractor for the site is Allgire General Contractors, based in Carlsbad.
Kathryn Musso, operations manager for Allgire, said late Thursday afternoon that the company doesn't know what caused the accident.
“It's under investigation currently, and that happened immediately as soon as the site was secured,” Musso said at the company's Carlsbad office.
“Our first and foremost concern is for ... anyone who was injured,” she said.
The project under construction, called “Studio fifteen,” will be 275 units of affordable housing, according to a sign at the site. It is scheduled to open in spring 2009.
Forty emergency personnel rushed to the area to care for the injured, Luque said. The surrounding streets were temporarily closed to traffic.
The walkway that collapsed runs along the south side of Imperial Avenue between 14th and 15th streets. Pieces of wood were lying on the walkway and leaning in the street.
Father Joe Carroll, who runs the St. Vincent de Paul-Joan Kroc Center for the homeless directly across from the accident, said people who live at the center and who come there to eat had just finished having lunch and were near the walkway when it collapsed.
Tina Allen, 41, lives at St. Vincent de Paul with her husband, Tyrone, 49, who was serously injured and taken to Scripps-Mercy Hospital.
“We were just standing under the boardwalk when it suddenly came down. It was horrible,” she said at the hospital.
Two witnesses who suffered minor injuries described seeing the walkway move before it collapsed. Some were hit directly by the falling wood, while others received glancing blows.
Abigail Garcia, 50, was on her way to a nearby dentist office when the structure began to fall.
Garcia said it felt like something struck the walkway before the collapse, and she said she was lucky to get out of the way before it tumbled down. She was treated by paramedics at the scene for an ankle injury.
A construction worker at the site, who did not want to be named, said he did not believe that any construction scaffolding next to the building fell on the walkway.
The developer of the project is San Diego-based Affirmed Housing Group.
Julie A. Hattler, chief financial officer for the company, arrived at the site shortly after the accident. She said an explanation to what caused the collapse would not be known until at least Friday.
“We are very concerned with the individuals that were injured,” she said. “Our thoughts and our prayers go out to them.”
Hattler said construction on the building of single-room occupancy units started about a year ago and was 50 percent to 60 percent complete.
When finished, it will be multilevel, with four stories in some places and five in others, she said.
Affirmed Housing Group specializes in building affordable housing units. The company has built numerous such projects in San Diego and Riverside counties as well as the San Francisco Bay Area, Heattler said.
It was the second major accident at a downtown construction site in the last several months.
On May 19, 14 construction workers were injured, three critically, in an explosion at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel under construction near the San Diego Convention Center.
The explosion ripped through the fifth-floor boiler room of the 30-story hotel and knocked out the northern face of the fourth through seventh floors.
The cause remains under investigation by Cal-OSHA, with a report expected by the end of the year.
Greg Gross: (619) 293-1889; 
