Obrenovacki Drum: Two Workers at VMA After Bucket Falls
VMA doctors report a broken hip in one worker and facial fractures in the other. Earlier unofficial reports of head and chest injuries differ from that.
Two workers suffered a broken hip and broken facial bones when an excavator bucket fell at a construction site along Obrenovacki Drum in Cukarica on Wednesday, October 14, at around 4 p.m. Both were taken to the Military Medical Academy (VMA) in Belgrade, and police and prosecutors are working to establish how the accident happened.
What happened at the construction site in Cukarica?
According to a source cited by Kurir, the bucket suddenly came loose from the machine and fell on two men working beneath it. A colleague of the injured men, who was at the scene at the time, told Telegraf that the bucket slid off its frame. The two accounts therefore differ: one describes a bucket that detached, the other a bucket that slipped.
Colleagues immediately called an ambulance, which, Kurir’s source says, arrived quickly. The injured men were then driven to VMA. In its first report, published Wednesday evening, Telegraf identified the site only as belonging to a company in Cukarica. The name of the firm, as well as the names and ages of the workers, have not been released.
What injuries did the workers suffer?
Colonel Prof. Dr. Predrag Djuric, chief on-duty physician of the VMA Internal Clinics group, described the injuries of both men to RTS:
“This involves two people who were working on Obrenovacki Drum, and there was an accident when an excavator bucket fell. They suffered serious, severe bodily injuries. One person suffered a hip injury, a fracture of the acetabulum, and the other person suffered injuries to the facial bones, a fracture of the zygomatic and maxillary bones”
The acetabulum is the part of the pelvic bone that forms the socket of the hip joint. The worker with that fracture was admitted to the Orthopedics Clinic. The other, whose cheekbone and upper jaw are broken, is at the Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic.
The doctor’s account differs from what the media reported earlier. Citing unofficial sources, Kurir and Telegraf wrote that one worker had a head injury and the other had his chest crushed, and that both were in stable condition. In Dr. Djuric’s statement there is no chest injury, and the fractures are listed in the hip and the facial bones.
What are police and prosecutors establishing?
Police carried out an on-site investigation, and the competent prosecutor’s office has been notified. They are determining the cause of the accident, any failures and who bears responsibility. Telegraf writes that the investigation should also show whether safety measures were followed at the site. No photograph from the scene has been published.
Dr. Djuric mentioned the workers as part of a wider report on VMA’s daily workload. Over 24 hours, he said, about 436 examinations were carried out in the surgical outpatient department and about 170 in the internal medicine department. Ten traffic accidents were also recorded, along with a large number of falls from height.
