Feb. 21--SAN FRANCISCO -- Two workers were injured Thursday afternoon when vertical scaffolding at the construction site for a downtown San Francisco skyscraper leased to Salesforce.com tipped over, sending them plunging to the ground, the city Fire Department said.
The two men were working on a 30-story tower at 350 Mission St. near Fremont Street when the scaffolding fell about 2:20 p.m., said department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge.
Some of the scaffolding collapsed onto the workers, and firefighters had to extricate them from the rubble, Talmadge said.
They were attached to the scaffolding with safety tethers, one about 40 feet above ground and the other working a few feet below him, said Jes Pedersen, president of Webcor Builders, the construction company working on the skyscraper.
Pedersen said the two men were carpenters for Webcor. He said construction halted immediately after the fall and would not resume until the company and Cal/OSHA, the state's workplace safety regulator, finished investigating what had gone wrong.
"We take all safety precautions very seriously," Pedersen said. "It was an unforeseen accident, something we work really hard to prevent."
The two men were taken to San Francisco General Hospital with life-threatening injuries, authorities said. Pedersen said some of the tight-knit crew, who were said to have been praying for the victims after the incident, went with them.
"We are most concerned with the victims themselves," he said. "We have people who are with them at this time, making sure they get the best care possible."
Kilroy Realty Corp. broke ground on the project in April, with plans to make it the first new tower in the city to achieve the highest ranking for green-building certification. Salesforce.com has pre-leased 100 percent of the building, with construction slated to be completed by early 2015.
Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @VivianHo
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