The worker, identified as Tilden Billiot, 65, of Westwego was operating a crane that day. According to Boh, Billiot’s mobile hydraulic crane was lifting a steel roadway curb form into position on the north end of the bridge, when for an unknown reason, the crane tipped over the bridge rail, and Billiot fell out of the crane’s cab and dropped 30 feet into Lake Pontchartrain. Billiot was rescued from the lake waters and taken to Northshore Regional Medical Center with serious injuries. He was later transferred to a New Orleans hospital where he died Monday.
In a statement released Wednesday, Boh said Billiot operated cranes for 20 years and had an excellent record. Billiot started working for Boh Bros. Construction in 2001, and had been part of the Twin Span construction crew for the past two years.
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“He was well respected for his abilities and skills,” Boh said in the statement. “He was an experienced, careful crane operator.”
Billiot’s death is the second in less than two months on the Twin Span project. On Nov. 1, Eric Blackmon, 44, of Coral Gables, Fla., was killed when he and nine other workers were thrown into the water after a girder they were standing on snapped and fell into the lake. Nine of the workers were rescued with minor injuries, but Blackmon was pinned under the girder at the bottom of the lake, and he drowned.
Blackman’s death forced the Department of Transportation Development and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency to shut down construction on the bridge for almost a week.
Limited work resumed shortly after, and work was back to normal when Billiot was thrown from his crane in December.
The causes for both accidents are still under investigation by OSHA and the DOTD.
Boh said the Billiot family, “requests their privacy be respected at this difficult time.”
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