The construction worker who died on the job Monday after falling more than 20 feet into a manhole was a local father of four.
Russell Anthony Tracy, 46, leaves behind his three sons and one daughter. “He always put family first,” Robert Ball said about his friend on Facebook.
Tracy reportedly fell about 11:40 a.m. Monday on a construction site near Las Vegas Boulevard South and Jonathan Drive, north of the M Resort. The fall happened just after Tracy had finished sandblasting pipes into the manhole, Clark County Fire Department spokesman John Steinbeck said.
It is unclear how Tracy fell, but county fire Chief Scott Webster said he died on impact. Tracy was pronounced dead at the scene at 1 p.m. by the Clark County coroner, and his body was recovered by emergency personnel at about 2 p.m. His official cause of death was multiple blunt-force injuries; the county coroner ruled the fall an accident.
Few details have been released about the deadly fall. On Tuesday, his wife, Meredith Fitzgerald-Tracy said even she hadn’t heard from investigators about what happened on the construction site Monday.
“I really need to know what happened. I’ve been trying my hardest to see him, but the coroner won’t let me,” she said. “All I want is to see him and say goodbye, but I keep getting the runaround.”
Teri Williams, a Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration spokeswoman, confirmed that the state agency was leading the investigation into Tracy’s death. As of Tuesday morning, however, the agency had no updates to release on the case.
“We won’t know much more until the investigation closes,” she said. “It could take up to six months depending on the complexity of it all.”
Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.
