Worker killed in Aladdin accident

Ed Koch and Jace Radke

Monday, April 12, 1999 | 11:12 a.m.

Stephen Abernethy grew up in a large family of union ironworkers and followed the family trade even though he also excelled at being a rodeo cowboy.

But none of the broncos he busted or bulls he rode in amateur and professional competitions in Utah could prepare the journeyman ironworker for the horrific ride he took Sunday, crashing through several upper stories at the Aladdin Hotel tower construction site to his death.

The Clark County Coroner's office said today that the man killed at the Aladdin construction site was Stephen Abernacke, 39.

Friends identified him as Steve Abernethy, and his brother as Dennis Abernethy, business manager of Ironworkers local 27 in Salt Lake City.

Dennis, along with Stephen's two young daughters were in Salt Lake City today making funeral arrangements at the McDougal Funeral Home, where services will be held.

Abernethy had come to Las Vegas with his fiancee to work on the Aladdin project and decided to relocate here permanently, friends said. He was in the process of changing his union membership to Ironworkers Local 433 in Las Vegas. The couple had planned to marry in about three weeks, friends said.

Co-workers in both Las Vegas and in Salt Lake City, where Abernethy worked for the past 15 years, remembered Abernethy as a competent worker.

"He was an excellent ironworker who was well liked, and I never heard him have a cross word for anybody," said Mike McDonald, president of Ironworkers Local 27 in Salt Lake City, for whom Abernethy worked as an apprentice.

McDonald said Abernethy was a true-life cowboy who took up the sport in high school in Murray and competed both in amateur and small pro events in Utah.

A co-worker on the job site, who asked that his name not be printed, called Abernethy "a good, safe worker."

"The crane didn't hit the building or drop a panel as they are saying on TV" in news reports, the co-worker said. "The floor collapsed under him."

The worker said he heard a "boom, boom, boom" and Abernethy, on the 23rd floor, fell with the rubble that eventually stopped at the 16th floor. Fire officials said Abernethy was on the 18th floor at the time of the accident.

"I know the crane didn't drop the plank, because it was still holding the panel when it was pulled back," the worker said

Abernethy was killed in the late-morning accident when five huge pieces of concrete flooring crashed through several stories of the south hotel tower.

Clark County Fire Department spokesman Steve La-Sky said that Abernethy went into cardiac arrest as a result of the massive trauma he suffered during the collapse of the structure and subsequent fall.

The 12-by-20 foot blocks of concrete flooring weighing 50,000 pounds were being set into position on the 23rd floor by a crane when something went wrong and they came crashing through the skeleton of the under-construction building, he said.

"They just came tumbling down and it created a pancake effect as the slabs smashed through each floor," La-Sky said.

The department's heavy rescue team responded to the site and pulled Abernethy from the debris on the 16th floor.

About 50 workers were at the site when the accident occurred. They were all sent home for the day after investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration closed the work site.

Jimmy Garrett, district supervisor of OSHA, said early today there are no preliminary findings to release and that the investigation is continuing. OSHA has six months to investigate such accidents.

Richard Goeglein, president of the Aladdin, offered his "deepest sympathy to the family," but said he had not received an assessment of the damage and could not comment on it.

Goeglein said, however, that he does not suspect that the damage caused to the structure will delay the opening of the rebuilt Strip resort scheduled for the second quarter of next year.

Fluor Corp., parent company of the project's general contractor, Fluor Daniel, said Abernethy was an employee of SMI Owen, a design/build subcontractor for the hotel tower.