Worker ‘bounced’ after garden walkway collapse

Nothing seemed wrong when everything went wrong, and the walkway beneath their feet collapsed. The fall was swift, terrifying. Tony Stovall looked down in time to see he was going to land on a tangle of reinforced steel. It was used in the walkway he and others were building at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

“I bounced,” said Stovall, who was released from the Shepherd Center Wednesday morning after spending nearly three weeks at the catastrophic-care center. “I was trying to crawl, to see if everybody else was all right.”

MARK DAVIS / mrdavis@ajc.com

Tony Stovall

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Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com

A walkway under construction at the Atlanta Botanical Garden collapsed Dec. 19, killing one worker.

• Garden reopens; admissions go to victims' fund
• The walkway tragedy
• Photos: From the air | On the scene
• Videos: The scene | WSB coverage | Walkway's installation

Everybody was not. The Dec. 19 accident at the garden’s Canopy Walk project killed one worker. Eighteen more were injured when the concrete path tumbled to the ground early that day.

Federal officials are still investigating the cause of the accident. The project, part of a $55 million facelift at the botanical garden, is on hold.

Some workers escaped with scrapes and bruises; others broke bones and suffered brain injuries. After treatment at Grady Memorial Hospital, seven were sent to the Shepherd Center, which specializes in spinal injuries and other serious conditions. One was treated and released; six others, including 46-year-old Stovall, stayed.

Wednesday morning, Stovall used crutches to attend a news conference, a brace encasing his chest and fractured back. A special boot covered his fractured lower right leg. His wife, Deidre, stuck close to his side. He was the last to leave the center.

An employee of SDC Concrete Construction, Stovall said he and others fell into a ravine. It was wet that morning.

“A lot of people were screaming,” said Stovall. Soon, firefighters showed up, carrying the wounded out on stiff stretchers, said Stovall. He lay in the damp dirt and waited.

His wife, meantime, got a telephone call: Come to Grady. She’d heard about the accident and knew her husband was on that job.

“It was totally terrifying,” she said.

What followed, say physicians, was close to miraculous: No one was paralyzed in the accident. Dr. Jeff Salomon, Grady’s deputy chief of surgery, couldn’t say why.

“After a decade in trauma care,” he said, “you can’t explain why anything happens.”

Instead, said Stovall’s wife, you remain thankful that the people you love will come home. At the Stovall household, that means a late Christmas. Tony Stovall’s presents remain unopened. The Christmas tree is still up.

Stovall must wear the brace until physicians say his back is OK again. His leg is not fully mended, either. He has to walk carefully.

But, in time, said Stovall, he may take his wife dancing.

“I’m ready when he is,” she said.