Project worker dies during Little Blue Creek Canyon construction

69-year-old was operating an excavator

[ By Katherine Nettles ]

A man was killed by unexpected rock fall on Tuesday, June 29, while operating a mini-excavator within the Little Blue Creek Canyon road improvement project on Highway 50 between Gunnison and Montrose. Ricardo Batista, age 69, of Florissant, Colorado was declared dead on the scene by Gunnison County coroner Michael Barnes. Batista was married, and Barnes said he has been in touch with Batista’s wife since the fatality occurred.

According to the coroner’s report and the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Department, Batista, a driller/blaster subcontractor on the extensive construction project, was approximately 50 feet up the canyon (vertically) on a rock ledge in the excavator when an overhead rock came down and overtook him and the equipment. The incident occurred at approximately 11 a.m.

The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office, emergency medical services and fire rescue responded to the area at mile marker 125, and upon arrival deputies investigated the accident. The canyon remained closed to through traffic on Tuesday afternoon for the medical response and investigation, but reopened to traffic flow as normally scheduled on Wednesday morning.

Barnes said the autopsy was still underway on Wednesday, “But it is safe to presume that he died instantaneously from multiple traumatic injuries.”

Infrastructure & Energy Alternatives, Inc. is conducting an ongoing investigation. Josh Shorley, the safety director for American Civil Constructors Mountain West, said on Wednesday that he could not share any information about the incident, except to confirm that, “there has been a fatality involving a second-tier subcontractor on the Little Blue Canyon project approximately 30 miles east of Montrose, Colorado. We do not have any details to share at this time. Our team will need time to gather the facts and determine the cause of the incident.”