A failure to properly brace a 44-foot-tall steel beam led to a spectacular, dominoes-like tumbling of metal behemoths at the construction site of BU’s Center for Computing & Data Sciences, according to the investigation of the incident, which was caught on a surveillance video and went viral across social media. 

Two workers were briefly hospitalized for minor injuries after falling off the tumbling beams in the mishap.

“The erector’s crew attempted to adjust the base of the first column without appropriate bracing or assistance, resulting in the column toppling into the other columns,” says David D. Flynn, BU’s assistant vice president for major capital projects. “Suffolk Construction is confident that this was an isolated incident.” Flynn says that the project management firm’s investigation was “validated by a third party independent engineering review.” 

The accident paused erection of the steel columns for about two weeks, until May 27, Flynn says.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the accident for possible workplace safety violations. “The safety of our people and trade partners is our number one priority,” Suffolk Construction said in a statement. “We are committed to delivering the highest levels of safety to ensure workers return home safely to their families at the end of every workday.”

“There will be added levels of review and oversight of mostly existing [safety measures],” Flynn says, “and some refinement of protocols in the field.”

University leaders say the most important news was that the two workers sustained only minor injuries. “They went home that night,” says Walt Meissner (CFA’81), BU’s associate vice president for operations.

“Thankful for the safety of the @SuffolkBuilds construction crew of our @BU_CDS future home,” tweeted Azer Bestavros, associate provost for computing and data sciences, immediately after the accident. 

“As I marvel at the awe-inspiring engineering that is going into the construction of our new home at the heart of the BU campus, I am always thinking about the men and women who are behind it all,” Bestavros says. “I feel a sense of gratitude for their hard work and I am just heartened that they are all safe and sound.”

Meissner says the University does not yet know whether the accident will affect the scheduled October 2022 construction finish date. “We continue with confidence that we will be able to move in and open the building in January 2023,” he says. 

Work on the building was delayed by last year’s pandemic-fueled construction moratorium in Boston.  

Bestavros says he hopes construction delays from the accident will be “minimal, if any, and most likely to be related to supply chain, since these beams are not the kind of thing you can reorder from Home Depot.”

The center is under construction on a former parking lot at the corner of Granby Street and Comm Ave on BU’s East Campus. The 305-foot-tall building, designed to resemble a stack of books, will be the tallest building on the Charles River Campus when completed.

“The safety protocols on the site are already very stringent,” Meissner says. “However, there will most certainly be changes in the steel erection protocols to ensure this does not happen again. We are lucky this did not result in a loss of life, and the team is moving forward with extreme caution.”