A crane accident at the new Ouachita River bridge site sent two workers to the hospital Thursday.
David Archer, with the Arkansas Department of Transportation, said two contractor personnel were injured while dismantling a boom crane at the Calion bridge job site.
Union County Sheriff Ricky Roberts said the two people had serious injuries and one was flown to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, while the other was taken to the Medical Center of South Arkansas for treatment.
“These men were seriously injured,” Roberts said on Thursday afternoon, noting that the sheriff’s department was still on the scene and assessing the situation.
The new bridge construction site is a part of the Arkansas highway department’s project to reconstruct U.S. Highway 167 into a four lane road from Little Rock to El Dorado.
William Hockaday, resident engineer for the highway department in Camden, previously told the News-Times that the new bridge will be 3,205 feet long and will be the northbound lane of the proposed four-lane bridge.
The bids for this project were taken late in 2014 and construction started in 2015, with completion expected by late this year.
W.G. Yates and Sons Construction Co of Philadelphia, Mississippi, was awarded the contract to build the new bridge with a bid of approximately $29.4 million.
The original bridge was built in 1931 connecting El Dorado to the highway.
Once this bridge is constructed, all traffic will be rerouted to the new one so repairs to the original Calion bridge can be made.
As of press time Thursday, the names and conditions of the two people injured were not released.
Madeleine Leroux contributed to this report.
Haley Smith can be reached at 870-862-6611 or at [email protected].