The link provided below has links to several articles, as well as video segments from the cable news channel, New England Cable News. You initially have access to the articles, but, eventually the registration page comes up. However, with a quick search, you can come up with articles from TV and other sources.
The story, from one of the articles, is as follows:
"The scaffold had been affixed near the top of a 14-story Emerson College dormitory under construction and was being dismantled when it came loose, hit an adjacent building, then crashed seven stories to the street. State and federal investigators and Boston police are still investigating the cause, authorities said.
The scaffold and building debris thundered to the ground just after 1:20 p.m. Screams came from the dust cloud that enveloped the block as passersby rushed to a crushed gray Honda sedan. Soon, there were three bodies under white tarps lying on the street amid twisted steel and scattered piles of debris and glass, witnesses said. The lone horn from a demolished car droned as rescue workers rushed to the scene."
Naturally, a lot of chaos resulted. The ambulances and police arrived. Later, Mayor Tom Manino arrived to assess the situation. Two of the bodies were workers on the construction project, while another was a doctor who happened to be driving by. There were some others who were injured, but not seriously. Many others had recounted how they had narrowly missed being hit.
Later, questions came as to the cause and who was responsible. The employees were from a firm that was hired as subcontractors, and it seemed that human error was involved.
Another question raise was what government body had oversight on this particular instance: city, state, or OSHA inspectors. The city claimed that they had jurisdiction over building codes only. The state said that their inspectors were powerless in enforcing any orders where OSHA had jurisdiction. OSHA's conducts spot inspections. Even there, they had cited the contractor several times, including scaffolding issues. An article from another source explains this: (
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Boylston Street is a main artery road for east-west travel, and people walk this section regularly. It made me wonder how more people weren't hurt that time of day.
Today, there remains a few reminders of that event. At street level, there is now a memorial plaque with the names of those who had died in that accident. If you look up, you can still see parts of cornices that are missing.