$11,550 fine for fatal accident
State regulators on Friday fined a San Francisco construction firm $11,550 for violating safety procedures leading to a job site accident in July that killed a woman when a wall collapsed on her parked car during the demolition of a Daly City supermarket.
Before the collapse, workers for O'Sullivan Construction and Building Inc. allowed a 125-foot-long section of wall to stand without adequate bracing, and a company official failed to continue inspecting the site for weakened or deteriorated walls as the work progressed, according to citations from the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
"The employer's qualified person for the jobsite was not present as the demolition proceeded prior to the collapse of the wall," one Cal/OSHA citation read.
In all, the company was cited for five violations, including failing to have adequate bracing, failing to have proper staff on site and failing to have a qualified person do a pre-demolition survey to assess the risk of unplanned collapse.
The company owner, Fergus O'Sullivan, said he would appeal all the citations before a Jan. 17 deadline.
"Our take on them is that they aren't true," O'Sullivan said.
The owner said he had directed his attorney to coordinate their own investigation into what happened when a concrete wall crashed onto a Volvo driven by Gregoria Alice Custodio of Union City, who had just finished visiting a friend and had pulled her car to the curb of Rio Verde Street.
"There is an investigation going on, and we're getting to the bottom of that," O'Sullivan said.
Custodio had pulled over to look at a map on July 31 when a section of wall 125 feet long and 24 feet high from the former El Rancho market crashed down at about 2:45 p.m., killing her instantly, authorities said.
The city manager of Daly City, Patricia Martel, said shortly after the accident that high winds may have been a significant factor in the collapse.
"It was very windy out there," Martel said. "If a wind hits a structure that is not fully supported on all sides, it is possible it could have the force to push something over."
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