Construction Worker

HOPKINTON A construction worker fell more than 20 feet from the top of a building in Hopkinton shortly after noon yesterday, a fire official said. Fire Lieutenant Carl Harris said the man was flown to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester after falling at the construction site on Clinton Street. The man was listed in critical condition as of 4 p.m., a hospital official said. Harris said emergency personnel could not get the man's name because of a language barrier. BOSTON Cape Cod man reportedly dies of rabies The first person to contract rabies in Massachusetts...

A fire engulfed a tent used as a dormitory for construction workers at an Istanbul construction site late Saturday, killing 14 people, a local official said. The workers were staying in a giant tent at the construction site of a supermarket, said Necmi Kadioglu, the mayor of Istanbul's Esenyurt district. "We suspect that the fire might have originated from an electrical heater," Kadioglu said, noting the cold weather in Istanbul. Turkey's state-run television says the fire might have been sparked by a short circuit.

Federal safety officials say a construction worker has died after falling from the roof of condominium in Shelton. Robert Kowalski, area director of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Bridgeport, said no details were immediately available about the accident Tuesday. The New Haven Register reports ( http://bit.ly/zz18qp) that police said the 46-year-old man was found unresponsive on the ground. He died at Bridgeport Hospital. The man's name was not immediately released.

HOPKINTON A construction worker fell more than 20 feet from the top of a building in Hopkinton shortly after noon yesterday, a fire official said. Fire Lieutenant Carl Harris said the man was flown to UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester after falling at the construction site on Clinton Street. The man was listed in critical condition as of 4 p.m., a hospital official said. Harris said emergency personnel could not get the man's name because of a language barrier. BOSTON Cape Cod man reportedly dies of rabies The first person to contract rabies in Massachusetts...

NEW YORK -- A construction worker was jailed yesterday after he confessed to killing an actress who was found hanging from a shower rod in an apartment she was having renovated. Diego Pillco, 19, made written and videotaped statements implicating himself in the slaying of Adrienne Shelly, Assistant District Attorney Marit Delozier said yesterday at Pillco's arraignment. "He said he fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck, and dragged her to the bathroom," where he hanged her from the shower rod, Delozier said at the brief court hearing.

PHILADELPHIA - A tall construction lift toppled over and struck a downtown Philadelphia apartment building yesterday, killing a construction worker who fell 125 feet. Investigators want to know if the 40-year-old victim was strapped into the bucket of the boom lift as he worked on a church roof. He may have free-fallen to the ground, they said. “It doesn’t appear that he was secured properly. We would expect that he was tethered in,’’ Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.

LA CONCHITA, Calif. -- Jimmie Wallet went out for ice cream, and when he got back, everyone and everything he had left behind were gone. Yesterday, he identified the bodies of his wife and three of his daughters, pulled from a tangle of homes smashed by a mudslide. No one lost more than Wallet in Monday's mudslide, which has killed at least 10 people in this oceanside community. Driven by the frantic hope of finding his family, no one was as quick to claw through the debris and help pull out survivors.

LEXINGTON - For many people, what they do for a living defines who they are in life. Such self-definition isn’t necessarily a question of workaholism or professional ambition. It’s simple arithmetic: Five times a week, half of each waking day is spent on the job. Is it just a coincidence that “labor’’ describes the process that brings people into the world as well as what they do at work? One of the many satisfactions offered by “The Way We Worked,’’ at the National Heritage Museum through Jan. 3, is how it rejects any narrow interpretation of its subject.

Mertie Turro, bookbinder; at 96 LOWELL -- Mertie B. (Latham) Turro, 96, of Lowell, a bookbinder, died July 23 at Lowell General Hospital. Mrs. Turro was born in Boston and lived in Lowell for more than 40 years. Prior to her retirement, she worked as a bookbinder at the Standard Diary Co. in Cambridge. She was also a member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church. Mrs. Turro was the wife of the late John B. Turro. She leaves one daughter, Barbara Elliot of Tacoma, Wash.; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

After a tormented existence as a father, a husband, a Coast Guardsman, and a construction worker, a 57-year-old suburban Boston man underwent a sex-change operation. And then she wrote off the $25,000 in medical expenses on her taxes. But the IRS disallowed the deduction, ruling the procedure was cosmetic, not a medical necessity, in a potentially precedent-setting dispute now before the US Tax Court. Rhiannon O'Donnabhain is suing the IRS in a case that advocates for the transgendered are hoping will force the tax agency to treat sex-change operations the same as appendectomies, heart bypasses, and...

Authorities have identified the construction worker who died after falling more than 50 feet at a Stamford construction site. Stamford police identified the man as 36-year-old Javier Salinas of Danbury. He was working on a roof at the Chelsea Piers sports complex when he fell Tuesday afternoon. He landed on pavement and died at the scene. The Advocate of Stamford reports (http://bit.ly/uZzL9A) that police Capt. Richard Conklin said preliminary interviews with witnesses indicate Salinas did not wear a harness or straps while on the roof.

Construction workers, miners and food service workers top the list of occupations that smoke the most, according to a new government report. Experts say it might have as much to do with lower education levels as the jobs themselves. "There may be other characteristics that are clustering in these industries," said Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Traits linked to higher smoking rates and seen in employees in these industries include being younger, having fewer years of education and making less...

PHILADELPHIA - A tall construction lift toppled over and struck a downtown Philadelphia apartment building yesterday, killing a construction worker who fell 125 feet. Investigators want to know if the 40-year-old victim was strapped into the bucket of the boom lift as he worked on a church roof. He may have free-fallen to the ground, they said. “It doesn’t appear that he was secured properly. We would expect that he was tethered in,’’ Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said.

LEXINGTON - For many people, what they do for a living defines who they are in life. Such self-definition isn’t necessarily a question of workaholism or professional ambition. It’s simple arithmetic: Five times a week, half of each waking day is spent on the job. Is it just a coincidence that “labor’’ describes the process that brings people into the world as well as what they do at work? One of the many satisfactions offered by “The Way We Worked,’’ at the National Heritage Museum through Jan. 3, is how it rejects any narrow interpretation of its subject.

After a tormented existence as a father, a husband, a Coast Guardsman, and a construction worker, a 57-year-old suburban Boston man underwent a sex-change operation. And then she wrote off the $25,000 in medical expenses on her taxes. But the IRS disallowed the deduction, ruling the procedure was cosmetic, not a medical necessity, in a potentially precedent-setting dispute now before the US Tax Court. Rhiannon O'Donnabhain is suing the IRS in a case that advocates for the transgendered are hoping will force the tax agency to treat sex-change operations the same as...

NEW YORK -- A construction worker was jailed yesterday after he confessed to killing an actress who was found hanging from a shower rod in an apartment she was having renovated. Diego Pillco, 19, made written and videotaped statements implicating himself in the slaying of Adrienne Shelly, Assistant District Attorney Marit Delozier said yesterday at Pillco's arraignment. "He said he fought with the victim, tied a sheet around her neck, and dragged her to the bathroom," where he hanged her from the shower rod, Delozier said at the brief court hearing.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Sixteen foreign-born construction workers with phony immigration documents were able to enter a nuclear weapons plant in eastern Tennessee because of lax security controls, a federal report said yesterday. Controls at the Y-12 weapons plant have since been tightened, and there was no evidence the workers had access to any sensitive documents, said the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons facilities for the Department of Energy.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Sixteen foreign-born construction workers with phony immigration documents were able to enter a nuclear weapons plant in eastern Tennessee because of lax security controls, a federal report said yesterday. Controls at the Y-12 weapons plant have since been tightened, and there was no evidence the workers had access to any sensitive documents, said the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons facilities for the Department of Energy.