Firefighter takes rescue in stride

Jace Radke

Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

Less than 30 minutes after arriving at the construction site of Wynn Las Vegas, Clark County Firefighter Vay Mickelson found himself slowly being lowered 52 stories to the ground with an injured crane operator in tow.

For Mickelson and three other members of the department's heavy rescue team, Wednesday's rescue was just another day on a job that also calls for pulling stranded motorists out of floodwaters, cutting people free from car wrecks and rescuing workers trapped at the top of Las Vegas' skyline.

"You really don't have any nerves because you know your team has you covered," said Mickelson, who was lowered by crane with the injured worker, who had fallen about 10 feet to a landing hundreds of feet above the ground. "There was no other way to get him down, so we went up and got him.

"I had the easy ride down."

The injured worker, 29-year-old Jacob Raines of Jake's Crane Rigging and Transport International, told paramedics that he had suffered neck and back injuries. He was taken to University Medical Center where officials said he was in fair condition Wednesday afternoon.

Raines was expected to be released from the hospital today, Wynn Resorts officials said. Those officials called the incident an "unfortunate accident."

Sam Centofante, a fellow heavy rescue firefighter, said that the rescue was actually one of the easier ones his team has had.

"We got lucky because we had a crane right here to use," Centofante said. "Usually we have to set a manual rope system to get people down."

The worker, who has not been identified, was injured as he entered or exited a trapdoor into the operating area of the northernmost of two towering cranes secured to the eastern face of the resort, Mickelson said.

"He fell about 10 feet from the crane to a platform below," Mickelson said. "He was pretty stable and we were able to get him into a stretcher and off the crane tower."

It was the second time this year that a worker was injured on the job at the $2.4 billion project at Las Vegas Boulevard and Sands Avenue. The resort is scheduled to open in April 2005. In January, the heavy rescue team lifted an injured construction worker off a 60-foot structure at the site using a crane and a stock basket after the worker was hit with a metal object.

Karl Lee, head of urban rescue operations for county fire operations, said it is not unusual for heavy rescue crews to respond to accidents at resort construction sites.

"It's not something that happens every day, but anytime you have thousands of workers on a project this big the potential for accidents is there," Lee said. "It's really amazing that we don't have more of these situations."

Southern Nevada has seen its share or construction accidents at megaresort sites over the years.

In December 1998, a 24-year-old worker was killed at the then-under construction Venetian, when a 10-by-20-foot piece of the hotel's facade fell from the top of the 35-story structure and killed him.

The iron and concrete piece weighed between 8,000 and 10,000 pounds.

In December 1994, a 320-foot crane fell and killed three men -- two of whom were sitting in their cars and another who was walking in a parking lot -- at the construction site of a 28-story addition to the Riverside in Laughlin.

In 1992 two workers were killed at the Luxor during construction of the pyramid-shaped resort. In September of that year a 40-year-old construction foreman was killed when he fell from scaffolding at the construction site of the 30-story project.

Three months later a 42-year-old construction worker was killed when a boom struck him at the Luxor.

Along with responding to high-rise rescues, the county's heavy rescue firefighters also are trained to make swift-water rescues, extricate people trapped in car crashes, pull people out of caved-in trenches and assist those hurt in machinery accidents, Lee said.

Approximately 30 Clark County firefighters are trained in heavy rescue techniques, and each member of the unit must complete 140 hours of training every year. The unit is paid for through taxes, just like other county fire services.