
Updated at 4:50 p.m. Thursday: County technical rescue crews were called to a downtown Bethesda construction site Thursday afternoon to remove an injured worker from several stories below street level.
The worker was alive and conscious when first responders arrived shortly after noon, according to firefighters at the construction site for a new Marriott headquarters between Wisconsin and Woodmont avenues.
The injuries were not life-threatening, county fire and rescue spokesman Pete Piringer reported.
The injured worker was 40 to 50 feet below grade, Piringer reported. Crews used a crane to hoist the worker to the street, where an ambulance was waiting.
The worker was struck by a cable and unable to get himself out of the site, and had to lifted to the street by an on-site construction crane, Piringer reported.
Andrew Gagliano, a spokesman for the public relations firm Maier & Warner, said an investigation of the incident is being led by the contractor Hensel Phelps.
Around a dozen police and emergency vehicles surrounded the site at 7750 Woodmont Ave., blocking southbound Wisconsin Avenue at Cheltenham Drive and northbound Wisconsin Avenue at Commerce Lane.
Crews from Bethesda Chevy-Chase, Aspen Hill, Germantown, Quince Orchard and Wheaton responded to the incident.
The worker was lifted to the Wisconsin Avenue side of the construction site. All lanes of Wisconsin Avenue were reopened by 1:05 p.m.