15-year-old boy had no safety equipment, stepfather says

A 15-year-old Lawrenceville boy was working without any safety equipment when he fell to his death at a construction site last week, his stepfather said Monday.

Raul Torres Torres was at work with his stepson, Luis Montoya, at the vacant Macy’s building at Gwinnett Place mall in Duluth when Montoya toppled through an empty escalator shaft and fell about 40 feet, from the third floor to the ground floor. Torres, who was in another area removing scrap metal, said Luis wasn’t wearing a hard hat or safety harness.

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Vino Wong/vwong@ajc.com

Yolanda Montoya and Lucky Montoya mourn the death of 15-year-old Luis, who died in a construction accident.

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“There was none of that, no protection,” said Torres in Spanish.

“There really should have been a supervisor saying ‘you have to put this on before you go to work,’ Someone should have been responsible for this. But there was none of that.”

The death has thrown a spotlight on his employer, Demon Demo, and the Suwanee-based company’s hiring and safety practices.

A spokesperson for Demon Demo said the company is conducting an internal investigation and is actively cooperating with OSHA’s investigation.

An initial police report says Montoya was 16. However, authorities have since determined he was only 15.

“A minor in Georgia under state law is not supposed to be working in a construction site,” according to Sam Hall, spokesman for the Georgia Department of Labor.

“[A minor] is someone fifteen years of age or under,” Hall said. “Clearly he should not have been working in a construction site.”

Demon Demo is demolishing the Macy’s department store interior because it will soon be converted into a giant Asian ethnic shopping destination.

The company was fined by OSHA for safety lapse in 2005, and the company had a repeat violation in 2008. Both violations involved employees not wearing a “body belt” or safety harness to prevent them from falling when using aerial lifts, said G.T. Breezley, director of OSHA’s Atlanta-East area office. Demon Demo was fined $2,500 for the first violation. The second violation drew a $4,000 penalty, which was later reduced to $2,000.

Montoya’s brother, Lucky Montoya, said the family is “very angry” about the accident and believes safety violations played a role.

A police officer who arrived shortly after the accident at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday noted there was “no safety equipment in site.” No one was wearing a hard hat. Instead, the hard hats were piled on the second floor, the police report stated.

“He was a good kid,” said Lucky Montoya. “And he just wanted to go on with his life. He had dreams. He didn’t want any of this to happen.”

The family said Montoya had been expelled from Berkmar High School for disobeying a teacher at a football game. Sloan Roach, spokeswoman for Gwinnett County Public Schools, could not confirm the details of the expulsion. She said the second-year freshman left school after facing a disciplinary panel in August.

Lucky Montoya said his brother was being home-schooled and he hoped to return to Berkmar in the spring. Montoya decided to get the construction job to stay busy in the meantime and save up to buy a car, his brother said.