Questions linger over second Edgartown worker death 

Last week, an emigrant from Ecuador living in Fall River was working high up on a residential home in Edgartown when he fell 20 to 30 feet to his death. It is the second time this year that a man from Ecuador has died after falling at a construction site in the down-Island town, and the third in recent months of a worker from Fall River.

Whether the worker was properly trained in safety procedures and what exactly went wrong will be left up to federal and state investigators; town officials say that it is not up to local entities to enforce safety at construction sites, and the last time the site was inspected was in January.

The third death in the Fall River community comes just days before a report, released on Monday, found that one of the most common causes of deaths in the trades in Massachusetts in 2024 was from a fall. 

The most recent workplace accident also comes following some harsh penalties to a contractor overseeing a project in Edgartown where a worker died in February, which is still under review by federal investigators.

As for the most recent tragedy, 33-year-old Jorge Marcelo Yanza Riera died on Tuesday last week. According to his family, he had emigrated from Ecuador to the U.S. to help support his family back home. He was working on the rebuild of a home at Trapps Pond Road in Edgartown. 

Local and state law enforcement had responded to the fall and rushed Riera to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Danielle Whitney, Cape and Islands District Attorney’s Office spokesperson, said there are no criminal charges.

According to town documents, the construction supervisor was Christopher Soverns of South Windsor, Conn., who owned the project with Joseph Pastore of Edgartown. Both are managers of Harbor View Builders, LLC. The applicants were not immediately available for comment. 

The incident is under investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). An OSHA spokesperson said the agency has six months to complete the inspection, and declined to comment further. 

Riera’s case was the third of an Ecuadorian construction worker from Fall River who died on the job over the past few months in Massachusetts; Jose Luis Collaguazo Crespo was working at the Meshacket Commons project in February, and was also reported to have fallen a distance before dying.

While OSHA is still investigating Crespo’s case, the Rhode Island–based Empire Builders general contractor, his employer, was cited three times for not ensuring its employees were properly trained in safety procedures. So far, Empire Builders has been penalized $19,860. 

The details of the investigation surrounding Crespo’s death have not been released, and OSHA officials declined to discuss the details.

Town officials in Edgartown say that OSHA is responsible for the enforcement of safety on job sites, though its presence is limited. Town officials are limited to filing reports to OSHA. 

Edgartown building inspector Reade Kontje Milne said while her department would report anything “egregious,” enforcement of job safety rules falls under the purview of OSHA. The last time the Trapps Pond Road project was inspected by the town was on Jan. 24. 

Milne said OSHA comes to the Vineyard by request, and she said that the agency doesn’t have a presence on the Island. Additionally, Milne said there is no town staff who inspect whether OSHA protocols are being followed, and ensuring safety is left to construction supervisors. 

Construction supervisors bear responsibility: “They have a license and they have the responsibilities,” she said. 

While Milne said it would be “amazing” to have more of an OSHA presence on the Island, it is not as simple as just creating a new town position to inspect job-site safety. 

James Hagerty, Edgartown town administrator, also said that workforce safety is largely out of the town’s control, beyond reporting to OSHA. 

“The town wouldn’t have the unilateral authority to enforce workforce safety at private job sites,” Hagerty said. 

While the town “always wants to ensure safety and well-being,” Hagerty said, making a local position similar to that of an OSHA inspector would require changes to the law and bringing in “subject matter expertise.”

In Fall River and in Ecuador, friends and families are remembering Riera as a hardworking young man who came to Fall River with hopes to build a better future for his family back in his home country. A GoFundMe campaign raising money for funerary costs and to return Riera’s remains to Ecuador was launched last week. 

“Jorge was a young man full of life, hard-working, always with a smile, and ready to reach out to anyone who needed it,” an English version of a message by Angel Yanza Riera, Jorge’s brother, reads. “His sudden departure has left an immense void in our hearts, and he also confronts us with a difficult economic situation.”

Reira’s death is not an outlier in Massachusetts. According to the report released on Monday by the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, a group advocating for worker safety, and the Massachusetts American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL–CIO), which represents hundreds of labor unions, “falls, slips[,] and trips” were the leading causes of death from workplace injuries in the state in 2024. Last year, 40 workers died from “traumatic injuries suffered at work,” half of which were in construction. 

“Fall-related deaths are not unpredictable tragedies — they are preventable with the right systems in place,” the report reads. 

The report also sounded alarms over the Trump administration potentially underfunding and understaffing OSHA, leading to increased risks to worker safety. Authors of the report called on Massachusetts to increase worker protections by developing and enforcing regulations through its Department of Labor Standards. 

Nicholas Vukota contributed to this story.