Buried alive. Electrocuted. Killed in falls. Records shine light on construction deaths.

When construction workers are killed on the job, their deaths often don’t make headlines.

To shine light on some of their lives — and deaths — The Charlotte Observer interviewed relatives and examined state labor department records, autopsies and police reports.

The summaries below describe some of the tragedies.

Falls

Falls are the most common cause of construction deaths in North Carolina. They led to the deaths of more than 140 construction workers in the state during the decade ending in 2023, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the N.C. Department of Labor.

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Jason Goodman was a gifted carpenter, but he had planned to hang up his hammer so that he could pursue his ambition of becoming a farmer, his brother Jeramy said.

He never achieved his dream.

Shortly before noon on July 1, 2022, Goodman was standing on a forklift with a load of plywood for the roof of a house he was helping build in Rowan County. He had been lifted about 12 to 15 feet in the air when things went awry, according to county sheriff’s Capt. Mark McDaniel.

When a coworker moved the forklift, the plywood shifted, knocking Goodman to the ground, according to state labor department records. The plywood sheets fell on Goodman and struck him in the chest. At age 43, he was pronounced dead on the scene.

State safety regulators cited the contractor, Speck Builders, with five serious violations. Among them: having a forklift operator who wasn’t trained; using a forklift platform that wasn’t designed to lift people; and having no guardrail or safety system to prevent a fall.

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The state fined Speck Builders $11,900. Jeramy Goodman said he knows no one intended to harm his brother. But he called the state’s penalty “nothing compared to a guy’s life.”

Goodman left behind a daughter, now 14, and many grieving friends and relatives who remember his gifts: his skill for restoring old cars, his ability to make new friends within minutes, his talent for making people laugh.

“A big old country bumpkin is what he was,” his brother said. “And everybody liked him.”

The president of Speck Builders didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Ricardo Aguilar Aleman, 51, was working for an industrial contractor at the Durham headquarters of the semiconductor manufacturer Wolfspeed on July 17, 2023 when he fell through a hole in the floor , labor department records show. The 14-foot drop to a concrete floor killed the father of four.

A sheet of plywood that was supposed to cover the hole had not been secured, workplace safety inspectors found. They fined the Raleigh contractor, Southern Industrial Constructors, $20,825 for two serious violations .

Ofelia Aguilar Baldwin, one of Aleman’s daughters, said he was a loving father, a hard-working Mexican immigrant, and a skilled and experienced welder. He should have been warned about the hole in the floor, she said.

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“The construction workers — their safety is just not taken as seriously as it should be,” she said.

Officials with Southern Industrial Constructors didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Trench collapses

Trench collapses can bury construction workers in thousands of pounds of soil and rock in just seconds. That’s why excavating and trenching are among the most hazardous construction operations.

Nationally, 39 workers died doing that work in 2022 alone, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In North Carolina, at least eight construction workers have died in trench collapses since 2014, records show.

Anthony Sharpe was shoveling dirt from a 7-foot deep trench on the afternoon of May 19, 2021, working to replace a parking lot drainage system in Taylorsville. Suddenly, a trench wall collapsed and buried him up to his neck in dirt and asphalt, records show. A 38-year-old father of two, Sharpe died from blunt trauma injuries, his autopsy found.

State occupational safety inspectors concluded that the company, Barnes Backhoe and Grading, had not provided an adequate system to protect employees from cave-ins.

Regulators also found that the company failed to provide a ladder or another safe way for employees to exit the trench, and that it didn’t instruct employees how to recognize and avoid trench hazards.

The state cited the company for four serious violations and one willful violation, the most severe kind. It proposed $39,200 in penalties, but reduced the fine to $29,400 following negotiations with the company.

Sharpe left behind a fiancee and two teenage children. He loved to fish, hunt for raccoons and listen to all manner of music, from bluegrass to rap, his mother, Patsy Sharpe, said.

It was standing room only during Sharpe’s burial service at Three Forks Baptist Church in his hometown of Taylorsville, about 70 miles northwest of Charlotte. He had dozens of friends who loved him for his kindness, his sunny disposition and his hilarious sense of humor, his mother said.

“He’d come up to you smiling — and you’d leave smiling,” his mother said. “Boy I miss that kid.”

The president of Barnes Backhoe didn’t respond to requests for comment.

On an October morning in 2021, Jose Rigoberto Resendiz was working inside a 15-foot-deep trench, helping to install a sewer line near North Hills Shopping Center in Raleigh, when tragedy struck.

A trench wall collapsed, burying Resendiz and trapping two other workers. Resendiz died from his injuries. The two other workers were injured.

Regulators found that the employees weren’t trained to recognize and correct hazards related to trenching. They also concluded there was “no competent person onsite to conduct a daily inspection” and said the employees working that day didn’t have the knowledge or ability to conduct those inspections.

They fined the company , William Parrish Plumbing, $6,300 for three serious violations.

Resendiz, 38, was known as Ojos, Spanish for eyes — a nickname he got as a child because of his beautiful eyes, said one of his older brothers, Jose Efrain Resendiz. He loved playing soccer and working out at the gym, sometimes for two to three hours straight. He had the physique of a bodybuilder, his brother said.

A father of three, he sometimes worked 60 to 70 hours a week in construction so that he could send money back to his family in Mexico, his brother said.

“He loved everybody,” his brother said. “Everybody loved him.”

William Parrish, the plumbing company’s president, did not respond to requests for comment.

Electrocutions

Electrocutions are another common cause of construction deaths. Over the past three years, at least nine construction workers have been electrocuted in North Carolina, state data shows.

James McKenzie was attempting to remove light fixtures at a Charlotte Douglas International Airport parking deck sometime after midnight on July 25, 2022 when he opened a 277-volt junction box and came into contact with electrical circuits, state documents show. He was electrocuted.

The 40-year-old Fort Mill resident left behind a wife and a three-year-old daughter.

McKenzie’s employer, Rosendin Electric, was cited for for failing to protect workers by de-energizing and grounding the electrical circuits or guarding them with insulation or other means.

The state labor department proposed a $14,502 fine against McKenzie’s employer, Rosendin Electric, but agreed to remove the citation and penalty after the company agreed to do a nationwide safety “stand-down” with employees to discuss the incident and the requirements for working on live electrical circuitry.

“Rosendin’s top priority is, and has always been, to maintain safe working environments and to uphold our safety standards to ensure our employees are trained and protected from workplace hazards,” the company said in a statement sent in response to The Observer’s questions about the death.

Accidents involving vehicles and machinery

On July 18, 2021, Miguel Angel Martinez was working the night shift at the site of an Amazon warehouse under construction in Pineville. The jobsite had experienced break-ins and thefts, and Martinez had been asked to help identify anyone on the site after hours.

Martinez was on the lookout for intruders that night when the all-wheel-drive utility vehicle he’d been driving rolled over following a sharp turn, according to state labor department records. He died after being crushed beneath the vehicle.

Labor department records show the vehicle was in no shape to be driven.

Martinez had complained about the vehicle’s brakes a few days prior. A technician found the brakes weren’t working and placed a red tag on the bed of the vehicle to reflect the problem, state records show. But the vehicle was not taken out of service, and no one told Martinez not to use it, records show.

Regulators cited the Conlan Company for failing to provide frequent and regular safety inspections on such vehicles and for not training employees how to operate them safely. The labor department proposed $13,300 in fines, reducing the penalties to $11,970 following negotiations with the company.

Officials for the Conlan Company did not respond to requests for comment.

Staff database reporter Gavin Off contributed.