A terrible workplace accident occurred this Tuesday, June 18 at the end of the morning in the town of Villevieux near Lons-le-Saunier in the Jura. Here’s what we know.
The alert was given shortly before 11 a.m. at a place called Trepet. On the construction site of a metal shed near a farm, the tragedy unfolded in a fraction of seconds. The owner of the premises witnessed the scene helplessly as he came to see the construction site which had started in the morning. “I saw the metal structure lying down more and more. I said to myself, it’s a business, they’re used to it. And the structure left, it hit against the arm of the crane. The crane fell. And when it fell, it bent the cabin. She was crushed and hit the head of a worker.” explains Sébastien Carmatrant into the microphone of our journalists Norbert Evangelista and Hugues Perret.
The fatal workplace accident occurred in the town of Villedieux in Jura.
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© Hugues Perret – France Télévisions
Four workers from the Bresse montage services company worked on this construction site. The company was taken over by the son. It was the latter, aged 49, who was in the crane. He died from the violence of the shock. Another 24-year-old man is seriously injured, with a life-threatening prognosis. He was airlifted to Besançon University Hospital.
Four workers were working on the site where the accident occurred.
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© Hugues Perret – France Télévisions
The Lons-Le-Saunier gendarmes are responsible for the investigation in conjunction with the labor inspection. They will hear witnesses to the tragedy. The construction equipment was frozen for the smooth running of the investigation. These workers were responsible for building a 220 m2 metal shed to house fodder. “At first glance everything was moored. What happened ? I don’t know” confides the farmer. The mayor of the town of Villedieux who had issued the building permit quickly came to the scene of the fatal workplace accident. “It’s extremely rare to see a beam fall on a crane cabin. I am very touched by this disaster and I am thinking of the families of these workers” expresses the mayor of this small town of 700 inhabitants.
Every day, men and women die in their workplace. In 2019, France was the country with the highest number of deaths from work accidents, with 3.5 deaths per 100,000 workers. According to figures from the Daresin 2005, there were 460 fatal workplace accidents, 560 in 2009 and finally 790 in 2019.
