Crane Falls on Harbor Freeway, Kills 1 : Construction: The accident occurred about 3 a.m. on a portion of the road that is being double-decked. Traffic was snarled for much of the day.

A black flag flying high above the Harbor Freeway on Wednesday marked the scene of tragedy and heavy traffic: the point where, just south of downtown Los Angeles, a 45-year-old freeway worker was killed overnight in a toppling crane.

The accident occurred shortly before 3 a.m. as crane operator Jimmy Lee Watson of Anaheim was completing work on a portion of the freeway that is being double-decked near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, officials said.

Watson, operating a 100-foot crane, was removing an 11-ton “cap form” used in making concrete pillars when his crane overturned, smashing the operator’s cab into a concrete wall in the center median. Watson was inside the ground-level cab and died moments later of massive injuries, co-workers said.

Watson was believed to be the first construction worker killed during the $55-million, 2.6-mile double-decking of the freeway, and somber crews who were back on the job after sunrise said the accident was a grim reminder that freeway work is hazardous. The Harbor Freeway project, in particular, is both a worker’s and commuter’s nightmare, requiring heavy, difficult work in a narrow center median of one of the city’s busiest traffic arteries.

“Here we are, building a double-deck over eight lanes of live traffic,” said one supervisor with Sacramento-based contractor C.C. Myers Inc., the firm that employed Watson. “We’re working in a median area that’s 36 feet wide. Everything has to be coordinated so equipment can go in and out” without interrupting traffic.

The three-year project, due for completion next year, involves the placement of 50 Y-shaped pillars along the center median to support a traffic lane nearly 70 feet above the existing freeway. While much of the work is done at night, with most freeway lanes closed, the project also has snarled rush-hour traffic for many months.

On Wednesday, frustrated motorists were backed up much of the day while two construction cranes--one badly smashed, the other flying the black mourning flag from its towering boom--sat immobile near southbound lanes.

“All I can say is, it’s dangerous work,” said Roy Buekhalter, 49, an ironworker foreman who overlooked the scene from a freeway overcrossing at 42nd Street. “It’s a very dangerous project. I prefer doing a brand-new freeway.”

The presence of heavy traffic makes construction crews feel they should hurry to finish, which worsens the dangers, Buekhalter said. Compounding the situation are the logistics of center-median construction: Trucks and equipment working on the freeway must come and go by merging into high-speed lanes of traffic.

“It’s the only way to get out of this median,” he said. “But these trucks, when they’re loaded, can’t get enough of a running start.”

One driver, a C. C. Myers employee who asked not to be named, commented: “You come out of there doing 30 or 40 m.p.h. and (freeway drivers) are doing 50 or 60. . . . You get a lot of this,” he said, flashing an obscene gesture.

Statewide, 45 Caltrans workers have been killed since 1973, along with an unknown number of contract workers doing freeway construction, officials said. Several crew members at work Wednesday recalled their own frightening moments, on this and other projects. Buekhalter recalled a time, many years ago, when he was at work on a section of the Santa Ana Freeway in Los Angeles. He was standing on a 20-foot-high platform while a crane operator was lowering a nine-ton piece of steel above him.

The operator hit the wrong level and allowed the steel to fall, forcing Buekhalter to jump for his life from the platform. The fall broke his foot.

“If I hadn’t jumped, there would have been nine tons of steel landing on me,” he said. “Hey, I’m still alive. Thank God.”

Cement worker Jim Boulanger, 45, of La Mirada, recalled backing up his 30-ton cement truck to a freeway construction site in Los Angeles last year and feeling the ground give way. His truck shifted about five feet toward a 30-foot drop-off, but stopped.

“I was in the cab,” he said. “These things are top-heavy. . . . It was touch and go.”

No one, however, could account for Wednesday’s accident.

Watson’s death occurred only a week after Caltrans officials were forced to close a section of the freeway at midday because of a bomb threat and a mysterious object--later found to be harmless--discovered near the construction site. But no immediate connection was made between the bomb threat and the crane accident, and Cal/OSHA investigators were still looking into possible causes late Wednesday, according to Caltrans spokeswoman Margie Tiritilli.

While C. C. Myers officials declined to comment, employees of the firm huddled in a gravelly construction yard and seemed to dismiss a number of possible explanations.

“It was a big enough crane,” said another crane driver. “The crane was in good condition.”

The driver, who asked not to be identified, said Watson was considered a good operator and that the company has always emphasized safety. Normally, the driver said, operating the crane is not considered especially dangerous work in freeway construction, despite the added lighting hazards of working at night.

“I just seen it tip over,” the driver said, adding that a number of employees ran to the wreckage, where she saw the fallen co-worker in the cab. “I seen his head move,” the driver said sadly, “and I figured, ‘Good, he’s alive.’ But five or 10 minutes later I heard he was dead.”

CONSTRUCTION TRAGEDY

A crane lifting an 11-ton form used in making concrete pillars overturned on the Harbor Freeway on Wednesday, killing its operator.

Other crane accidents

Fatal crane accidents have occurred throughout California. Among those in recent years: SEPT. 7, 1990: A technician is killed at Edwards Air Force Base when a Titan 4 rocket motor drops from a crane and bursts into flames.

JAN. 18, 1990: A crane loading a 12,000-pound concrete freeway barrier

onto a flatbed truck topples, crushing the truck driver on the Century Freeway project in Inglewood.

NOV. 28, 1989: A construction crane snaps in two and tumbles 19 stories, sweeping four workers to their deaths and crushing a bus driver in downtown San Francisco.

JULY 10, 1987: A crane accident at National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. in San Diego kills six workers, injures six others.

APRIL 27, 1987: A special overhead crane crushes its designer, who was directing the operation at the Battaglia Marble Co. in the Harbor City area.

APRIL 24, 1987: A longshoreman is killed and another injured when a cargo beam they are using in conjunction with a crane falls on them.

APRIL 7, 1987: A 260-foot crane collapses while lifting a large section of steel framework during the remodeling of the Los Angeles International Airport terminal, crushing a passing car and fatally injuring its driver.

NOV. 28, 1986: A man is killed and another injured when a 30,000-pound crane they are operating on a sound stage at Universal Studios falls through a temporary floor.

DEC. 18, 1985: An accident at a high-rise office tower being built on Wilshire, between the Los Angeles Hilton and the Harbor Freeway, kills three workers and injures six when a stack of steel girders being hoisted by a crane plunges 11 floors.

Compiled by Times editorial researcher Cecilia Rasmussen