Some 120 workers got out before garage collapse, officials say Two workers are hurt at the unfinished six-story building at University Hospital.

San Antonio firefighters inspect the rubble of a parking garage that collapsed Monday February 14, 2011 at the corner of Medical and Wurzbach. Two workers were injured. San Antonio firefighters inspect the rubble of a parking garage that collapsed Monday February 14, 2011 at the corner of Medical and Wurzbach. Two workers were injured. Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS Image 1 of / 24 Caption Close Some 120 workers got out before garage collapse, officials say 1 / 24 Back to Gallery

Construction executives had no immediate explanation for the collapse of a six-story parking garage being built at University Hospital that injured two workers Monday, one critically.

Air horns alerted about 120 construction employees to clear out of the site on Wurzbach Road at Medical Drive around 11:45 a.m., after workers reported hearing rumbling, Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

“We heard a big old bang and then looked across the street and saw beams coming down and clouds of smoke,” said Laura Moreno, an employee at Wheelchairs Plus, which faces the garage. “The workers were all running away from the building. It was a scary sight.”

Hood said the collapse brought down 1,500 tons of concrete and steel, compressed into a two-story pile of rubble.

Jeff Johnson, project executive for Zachry Vaughn Layton, a consortium of three companies in charge of a $900 million expansion of University Hospital, declined to speculate on what caused the dramatic collapse.

“There are columns and beams, but we haven't determined what the reason is behind it all,” he said.

The framework was still being built but was almost ready for floors to be poured, officials said.

Trauma surgeons who heard about the accident rushed to the scene on their own accord, and the two injured workers were taken to University Hospital, University Health System spokeswoman Leni Kirkman said. Monday evening, one worker was listed as critical and the other as stable.

Johnson said a crisis management plan was put into effect immediately and that all workers at the site were accounted for.

“People were treated, the area was secured and we did a head count, twice,” Johnson said. “We have a very rigorous safety program. We conduct daily, weekly and monthly activities.”

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Across the street, Moreno was one of several people who called 911 to report the building's disintegration, which shook the ground in the surrounding South Texas Medical Center.

“The dispatcher asked if I knew if people were inside,” she said. “I had no idea. I was shaken up. ... I can't imagine how the workers must have felt.”

Johnson called the emergency response “excellent.” Firefighters swarmed over the scene, police stopped traffic on Wurzbach and construction workers, still wearing white hard hats and yellow safety vests, lined the sidewalks, becoming spectators with the area's busy lunchtime crowds as officials worked to secure a perimeter.

Several construction workers would not comment, claiming they didn't speak English or weren't inside, despite being heard replaying the chaotic event among themselves and on cell phones in hushed voices.

A chaplain from University Hospital prayed with construction workers.

“I saw them take out two patients on stretchers,” said Adriana Nabarro, 23, who was at a nearby Walgreens when she heard the crash. “I was really worried. I feel so bad for them.”

Two trucks were crushed in the rubble. The human toll could have been far worse, officials agreed.

Johnson said a safety procedure that ensures that workers aren't beneath beams while they are being moved into place kept injuries to a minimum.

“We're very fortunate, because we could have had some catastrophic injuries,” Fire Chief Hood said. “To only report two injuries is extremely fortunate.”

Moreno, the eyewitness, went even further, saying, “It's a miracle that nobody else was injured. It really is.”

Firefighters were concerned at first about the possibility of secondary collapses. They checked a still-unfinished seven-story parking garage next door that opened last month for employee parking but cleared the scene after two hours.

Zachry Vaughn Layton will look into what caused the collapse, Johnson said.

An Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigator was en route to begin an inquiry by the Labor Department, which could take six months, an OSHA spokesman said. Until OSHA's investigation is complete, the site will remain closed and construction on the garage will cease.

The hospital expansion had been touted on construction signs at the site as providing “Groundbreaking health care for the people of Bexar County.”

The hospital system's capital improvement plan includes a nearly 1 million-square-foot tower at the hospital, a six-story facility downtown and the two garages, which together would provide 3,300 parking spaces. The garages were slated to open this summer.