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GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) -- A Utah man was killed by a piece of steel that fell from a construction project on a Mississippi River bridge.
Chicot County, Ark., Sheriff Floyd White said his office responded to the scene of the accident on the U.S. 82 bridge around 3:45 p.m. Thursday. White said Leslie Alan Wilson, 36, of Heber City, Utah, was killed when the piece of steel injured him at the work site.
The bridge connects Greenville, Miss., to Lake Village, Ark.
Steve Underwood, project manager, said the worker was killed "when a bracing member in a cofferdam fell."
"They were working on a pier on the east bank of the Mississippi side of the river when the accident occurred," White said. "The victim was trying to free up a brace that had gotten hung up and when it came a loose it hit him."
Wilson's body is being sent to the Arkansas Crime Lab in Little Rock for an autopsy.
Wilson had been working with the construction crew since Massman-Traylor started the bridge project, the sheriff said.
Construction of the Mississippi River crossing is scheduled to be completed in early 2006. The new bridge will carry four lanes of traffic.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APTV-07-15-05 1840MDT
