New Belgrade: Engineer, 24, Breaks Spine in Site Fall
Geodetic engineer N. B., 24, fell from a ladder at a New Belgrade construction site and fractured his spine. The accident happened a day earlier; the Labor Inspectorate is now reviewing the case.
A 24 year old geodetic engineer, identified only by the initials N. B., was seriously injured at a construction site in New Belgrade. According to Telegraf and Informer, the accident happened a day earlier, on September 13, though the exact time has not been reported by any source.
The fall occurred during a routine geodetic survey of the terrain. Early reports say N. B. slipped off a ladder and fell from a height of about two meters. Espreso, citing unofficial information, reports that bystanders and workers nearby rushed to help as soon as they saw the young man lying on the ground, and quickly called an ambulance.
The injured man was rushed to the Emergency Center. Doctors confirmed a spinal fracture, which all three sources describe as a serious bodily injury. No further details on his condition after admission to the hospital have been released.
Labor Inspectorate has yet to establish the circumstances
The Labor Inspectorate has officially been notified of the case. Its task is to establish the full circumstances of the accident and check whether the prescribed workplace safety measures were in place at the site. As of this morning, no named official, either from the Labor Inspectorate or from the contractor, has issued a statement. All details of the accident, including the circumstances of the fall and the identity of the injured man, come exclusively from journalists’ unofficial sources rather than an official statement from the institution, so unlike reports based on a state body’s official release, this account cannot be treated as institutionally confirmed until the Labor Inspectorate issues its findings.
The difference in sourcing is visible in the reports themselves. Telegraf says it learned of the story independently, while Espreso explicitly states that its information comes from unofficial sources. Informer’s report uses wording identical to Telegraf’s, without citing its own source. None of the three outlets names the person who was supervising the work at the site that day, nor the company carrying out the construction.
Sources disagree on the exact location
The sources differ on how precisely they place the site. Telegraf writes that the accident happened at a construction site on Omladinskih Brigada Street in New Belgrade. Informer and Espreso, however, only say the site is in New Belgrade, without naming the street. Neither the name of the building under construction nor the developer has been disclosed in any of the reports.
This is not the first workplace accident reported at a construction site in New Belgrade in recent times. Our newsroom has previously reported on a case at a site in the same part of the city where a 46 year old worker was killed. Unlike that case, in which a man lost his life, the 24 year old geodetic engineer, according to information published so far, survived the fall and sustained a serious bodily injury, and his identity, in line with privacy rules for injured parties, has not been published in full, only through his initials and age.
None of the three sources states whether the employer filed a workplace injury report with the relevant inspectorate as soon as the incident became known, or whether the site was placed under any kind of work restriction pending the review. This information was not available at the time of publication.
The Labor Inspectorate’s investigation, as is standard practice in such cases, is expected to determine whether the accident resulted from a failure to apply workplace safety measures or from circumstances that could not have been foreseen. Srpske Novine’s newsroom is following the case and will publish new information as soon as it is officially confirmed, including the name of the contractor and any statement from the Labor Inspectorate, if they become available.
