Buried alive….or not?

Now that my summer vacation is over, I’ve been thinking again about some of the other dark aspects of big, impressive bridges. Especially with regards to a pervasive urban legend that I’ve heard over the years, including most recently from my husband, no less. When we were planning to visit the New River Gorge Bridge earlier this summer, my husband recounted to me a tragic tale of a hapless construction worker who died on the job in a most horrific way. While they were pouring one of the concrete piers for the bridge, a worker slipped and fell into the wet concrete. The unfortunate man sunk down into the mixture and disappeared as fresh concrete was poured in on top of him. For a moment, I looked at my husband in shock and disbelief, and asked why they did not stop the pour and rescue the man. His explanation was that they were behind schedule, over budget and could not stop to retrieve the worker and had to continue on with the pour. I was still disbelieving, but I asked him if he was sure this happened at the New River Gorge Bridge. He responded in the affirmative, saying that there is a plaque somewhere on the base of one of the piers in memory of the deceased worker. So there I was, planning a trip to visit a huge, very high and very intimidating bridge and walk its maintenance catwalk, and then I find out about something horrific like that! Wow, what a way to make it even scarier…

But then I got to thinking. Where had I heard this sort of thing before? Something that had nothing to do with a bridge that I didn’t know existed. A horror movie, perhaps? A ghost story? Despite the ominous and intimidating nature of West Virginia’s metal monster, this accident account just didn’t sound right. So I decided to research not only the history of the construction of the New River Gorge Bridge, but I also looked into whether this accident account could have been connected to any other bridge. I did find record of a fatality that happened during the West Virginia monster’s construction, but no one was buried alive in a concrete pour. Apparently a worker slipped and fell to his death. If there is a plaque anywhere on the bridge, I’d imagine it is simply a memorial to this deceased worker. As far as any other bridge having the notoriety of being a tomb for some hapless worker, I could find no convincing evidence that anything like that has ever occurred. Essentially this is just an urban legend, a scary tale which serves the purpose of upping the ante of fear with regards to such massive and epic structures.