State Officials Investigate After Man Dies On Construction Project In Ludington

A horrible accident has the state investigating.

A construction worker died when he fell 30 feet at the Ludington Water Plant.

The man who fell was not a city worker, but worked for a Grand Rapids based construction company.

The deadly fall happened Wednesday evening around 5:30 at the Ludington Water Plant.

Kevin Martinez was working on top of a clarifier tank.

9&10’s Taylor Jones was at the scene and brings us our top story.

Police say Kevin Martinez was only 20 years old.

They tell us he fell through a skylight and then 30 feet down to the bottom of the empty tank.

“He’s on his right side. He is bleeding from the facial area,” says a voice on Broadcastify Scanner Traffic.

Frightening moments for first responders at the Ludington Water Plant. Kevin Martinez was working construction at the plant for Davis Construction.

“The city hired Davis Construction to do some significant renovations to the water plant and as I understand it, the victim was up on the roof doing some work there and apparently fell through a sky light about 30 feet into a large tank,” says John Shay, city manager.

He was taken to a hospital in Grand Rapids where he died of his injures.

Its unclear what happened and who was there at the time.

Thursday, officials from MiOSHA were on scene investigating.

“They are going to do their investigating and issue a report as to whether there were any violations from the contractor,” says Shay.

We reached out to Davis construction. They refused to comment.

City officials were saddened to hear of this accident.

“Just tragic, this was the last thing that was in our minds that would ever happen frankly, I hope they can do their investigation and get to the bottom of it and our thoughts and prayers really go to his family,” says Shay.

This also was a shock to the community.

“You don’t think of it as a dangerous job but obviously it is. People do get hurt, it’s just really unfortunate to get a reminder of that in a little town like this, especially someone so young,” says Zack Watts, lives near Ludington.

An autopsy has been scheduled for Martinez.

MiOSHA will be investigating over the next several weeks.