Person injured after 100,000-pound rig tipped over outside Portland's Oregon Health & Science University

The operator of a 100,000-pound drilling rig was seriously injured after the machine tipped over outside Southwest Portland’s Oregon Health & Science University on Friday morning, pinning the worker inside.

The operator, who has not been publicly identified, was extricated from the machine’s cab by Portland Fire & Rescue and taken to a trauma center, said department spokesperson Lt. Laurent Picard.

No one else was injured, Picard said.

The department previously said in a since-deleted Twitter post that the operator was not seriously injured. Portland Fire & Rescue referred to the rotary drilling machine as a “construction crane” in a separate Twitter post.

The injured worker is an employee of Vancouver-based construction company Pacific Foundation and was working at the site of a hospital expansion project, according to Tim Johnson, general manager of Skanska, the construction and development company behind the project.

Skanska is investigating what caused the rig to tip over, Johnson said in a statement Friday afternoon.

Johnson said Skanska does not have permission to release the name of the worker, who is being treated at the Oregon Health & Science University Hospital.

Portland Fire & Rescue firetrucks blocked traffic on Southwest Campus Drive near Casey Eye Institute after a construction crane tipped over nearby Friday, Aug. 12, 2022.Maxine Bernstein

Portland Fire & Rescue received reports of the rig tipping over on Southwest Campus Drive just before 10:45 a.m., Picard said.

Construction crew members positioned a jack to lift the rig up and off the worker before fire crews arrived. Fire officials then broke the glass of the cab and extricated the worker, Portland Fire & Rescue said in a statement Friday afternoon.

The extrication took 14 minutes, officials said.

Several fire trucks blocked traffic on Southwest Campus Drive outside the Casey Eye Institute around 11:15 a.m. Rescue workers and fire trucks started leaving the scene by 11:30 a.m.

-- Catalina Gaitán and Maxine Bernstein

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