27-year-old in hospital

Serious accident at the Semmering Tunnel construction site

A serious accident occurred on the Styrian side of the Semmering Base Tunnel construction site on Tuesday afternoon: part of a piece of work equipment fell on a 27-year-old man and seriously injured him.

The construction site for the Semmering Base Tunnel is probably one of the most spectacular in the entire country - and also one of the most dangerous. Unfortunately, the latter was proven once again last Tuesday. In the afternoon, a 27-year-old man was carrying out routine checks with the tunnel supervisor in the Grautschenhof section (Spital am Semmering). He was on his way with a so-called sound carriage when a spindle suddenly came loose from the head of the carriage and fell onto the man. The piece, which weighed around 200 kilos, hit the worker in the chest area.

The 27-year-old was seriously injured and had to be flown by helicopter to Wiener Neustadt Regional Hospital (Lower Austria). Initial investigations revealed that the accident was caused by a technical fault.