Othello Utility Worker Dies in Tragic Collapse

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By Sabrina Suzuki

Summary

Students watched while their teacher and a utility worker crashed to the ground during a school demonstration. Investigators are still trying to find out why the boom on a bucket truck failed.

Story Published: May 31, 2007 at 11:08 PM PST

OTHELLO -- We know the name of the utility worker who plunged to his death in front of hundreds of students.

He's 50-year-old Bob Smith of Othello.

Making it worse, the kids watched a teacher plunge to the ground too.

It happened while the two were hoisted 30 feet in the air, held up in a bucket, supported by a long boom.

Students were outside at Hiawatha Elementary School when the accident happened.

The group was doing a science demonstration, dropping eggs from up high.

That's when the bucket fell.

Smith and the teacher crashed to the ground.

"Some of the kids started crying, we were all shaking, we just didn't know what to do," said Karen Magana, a 6th grader at the school.

Magana and her friends are shaken up by what they saw.

They're finding comfort being with each other.

"It made a sound, crack and then it fell," Magana said.

"I started crying, it was really sad," said Ana Ramirez, a 5th grader at the school.

Ramirez's teacher was in the accident.

She and her classmates can't believe what happened.

"The moment it happened, it was so quick, the thing started dropping and they both fell to the ground and the ambulance came and everything," Magana said.

"When we were crying, we were telling each other they'll be fine and we were comforting each other," student Karina Garcia said.

"I hope she gets better soon, because we all miss her," Ramirez said.

The scene of the accident is taped off and investigators are trying to figure out how the boom separated from its base and fell.

Meanwhile, students are trying to cope after a fun-filled day ended in horror.