A New Mexico hospital became a mass trauma site Tuesday — not because injured were coming here for help but because one person died and seven other people got hurt when scaffolding collapsed outside, a fire official said.
The incident happened around 1 p.m. (3 p.m. ET) when a 21-foot section of scaffolding “buckled and collapsed” near a part of Presbyterian Rust Medical Center in Rio Rancho that was under construction, the hospital said.
Some 238 construction workers were on-site at the time, and the vast majority escaped unscathed.
Four of the injured were critical, and one of those people died, according to Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue Inspector Jessica Duron-Martinez.
“It is a six-story building, and the scaffolding fell from the fifth-floor all the way down,” Duron-Martinez explained.
Three of those wounded were transported to University of New Mexico Hospital about 15 miles to the southeast in Albuquerque, while two got treated at Presbyterian Rust Medical Center, the latter hospital said. The other three were treated and released.
As to why this all happened, authorities are still trying to figure that out.
“We don’t know what caused it,” Duron-Martinez said.