Roof collapse led to injuries

Twenty-five years ago this week, a roof collapse led to several injuries.

The Oct. 23, 1996, edition of The Commercial Review included a story about four construction workers who were injured the previous day while they were working on the roof of a new Chinese restaurant — Great Wall, owned by Tommy Zhang — that was under construction on the north side of Portland.

About 5 p.m. Oct. 22, the roof at the Meridian Street site collapsed when a rafter at the north end of the stretch fell over, causing a chain reaction that ended up knocking over the east and west concrete block walls.

Ting Ting Zhang, 25, Zhang Li, Lian Da Lee and Chaun Zhu Chen, all of Portland, were injured. The next day they were listed in stable condition at Jay County Hospital. Tom Valerius, CEO of the hospital, said they had suffered various broken bones and bruises.

Three of the workers fell onto the wood rafters and a fourth apparently jumped off the northeast side of the building as it collapsed.

“They were just walking around there and the next thing you know it fell down,” said Portland’s John Lawrence, who was on site working as a crane operator. “I crawled down out of the crane to try to find everybody. …

“It was a good thing they were all on top,” he continued. “They landed on top of everything else so there wasn’t actually anything that fell on them …

“They were pretty lucky.”

Portland police officers Kirk Daniels and Rob Myers were the first emergency officials on the scene.

“There were two people laying on top of the rafters and there were several people helping them,” Daniels said.

Officials from Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration were expected to investigate the accident.