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A 27-year-old man died on Friday after falling into an approximately 50-foot-deep well located on a residential construction site in Bel Air, according to the Los Angeles Times. While he was being lowered into the well in a basket, the cable he was attached to became untethered and dropped him.
Los Angeles Fire Department search and rescue personnel first responded to a call at 2:48 p.m. at 908 Bel Air Road, according to KTLA. When they arrived, they found the construction worker lying face-down in water and debris at the bottom of well, roughly 4-feet in diameter.
"He fell off the basket and he fell. We don't know what the length of his drop was, it is a 50-foot shaft," said Eloy Bugarin, of the LAFD, to KTLA.
The man was unresponsive, and when rescuers reached him they determined that he was "beyond medical help." He was declared dead at the scene shortly thereafter. It is now up to the L.A. Coroner's Department to determine whether the man died of injuries from the fall, or was asphyxiated in the oxygen poor environment at the bottom of the well.
The site at 908 Bel Air Road is reportedly that of a large private home under construction. Employees of Cal/OSHA, which investigates workplace accidents, are investigating the death.
