A worker fatally injured when a rebar wall collapsed at a UCSD construction site this week was identified Friday.

The county Medical Examiner’s Office identified the worker as 32-year-old Sergio Cruz and said he had been struck in the head by falling rebar. Cruz, who would have turned 33 next month, had recently moved to the region from Tecate.

Cruz was on the job when a 35-foot wall collapsed about 8:20 a.m. Thursday at the site of the under-construction North Torrey Living and Learning Neighborhood on the west end of the University of California San Diego campus.

A spokeswoman for Clark Construction, which is running the construction project, said five people had been in the area at the time of the collapse.


At least four people were injured and taken by paramedics to a hospital.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said Cruz had sustained a severe head injury and, despite efforts to revive him, he died at the hospital shortly before 10 a.m.

The $627 million complex is the single largest construction project in UC San Diego history, and includes housing for 2,000 students, as well as two research towers, dining, retail shops and a theater.