AUSTIN (KXAN) — A Travis County grand jury indicted a Central Texas contracting company after one worker died in October 2021, Travis County District Attorney José Garza said at a press conference Thursday.
A worker employed by D Guerra Construction LLC died in October 2021 after being asked to finish a job and return to a site where hours earlier a partial trench collapse happened, according to a U.S. Department of Labor release.
When the employees began their duties at the 13-foot-deep unprotected trench, the trench collapsed again.
Employee Juan Jose Galvan Batalla was completely buried in the trench collapse and passed from his injuries on Oct. 30, 2021. The second employee involved was partially buried and had serious injuries, the release said.
“He had dreams of watching his son grow up with his siblings,” Batalla’s mother, Rosa Morales, said during a Thursday news conference.
D Guerra Construction LLC and the project superintendent were indicted and accused of criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony, the district attorney said.
Garza and OSHA Director Monica Camacho and the victim’s family spoke at a press briefing at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
“No mom deserves to feel this kind of pain,” Rosales said. “It’s been three years of crying and asking God for answers.”
D Guerra Construction LLC reported the hospitalization to investigators with the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration later than the required time frame of 24 hours after the incident, according to OSHA.
OSHA cited the company and proposed penalties totaling $243,406 for failure to report the hospitalization in time, Garza said.
Garza said in June 2022, OSHA referred the case to the Travis County DA’s office after it completed its investigation and cited the company for various workplace violations.
“Despite a partial trench collapse earlier in the day, D Guerra Construction LLC recklessly sent employees back into the excavation without protective measures to prevent another cave-in,” said OSHA Area Director Casey Perkins in Austin.
“Mistakes need to be paid for,” Rosales said. “They’ve should’ve been watching out for my son because he was learning.”
Garza stated over 250 workers have died in trench collapses in the United States in the last decade. In that time, only 11 employers were charged criminally for each worker’s death, and until now none of the prosecutions occurred in Texas, according to Garza.
“All workers here in Travis County deserve to be safe at work so they can return to their families at the end of the day,” Garza said.
“He was so happy and everyone loved him. We miss him so much,” Rosales said.
“We give thanks for the justice we have received and we remember him as the hard worker he was who never said no to any job he was asked to do,” she said.