Workplace safety enforcement officials said it could be months before more is learned about the entrapment incident that killed a Colorado Springs crane operator last week.

The Colorado Springs Fire Department recovered the operator’s body with the help of other crane operators on April 28 after spending nearly seven hours at a construction site located near the city’s airport within the Peak Innovation Park. Department spokesperson Ashley Franco told The Gazette such incidents are “pretty rare.”

The El Paso County Coroner’s Office later identified the operator as 32-year-old Alex Disher, a father of three. According to a GoFundMe page created by his sister-in-law, Disher was the sole provider for his wife and kids.

The page describes him as a “true family man” with a “goofy personality” who always wanted to make people laugh.

Described as a “complex” recovery effort, Franco said Disher was trapped somewhere outside the crane’s cab. The department’s technical rescue crew had to cut machinery to recover his body, which is why the effort took so long.

Franco left any further details to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which is investigating the incident.

OSHA spokesperson Tiffany Koebel told The Gazette they have six months to investigate. She said it’s impossible to know at this stage if the investigation will take that long and declined to answer any further questions about the incident.

Construction company has had past OSHA violations

The company leading the $63 million development project within the Peak Innovation Park, Minnesota-based Opus Group Inc., has had at least one other run-in with OSHA. In 2015, records show Opus Group reached an informal settlement and was fined $560 for a violation.

The case was labeled as a “serious” citation type. The category exists when a workplace hazard could cause an accident or illness that would “most likely” result in death or serious physical harm, according to an OSHA webpage.

Generally, technical rescues in Colorado Springs are uncommon, Franco said. Rescues involving construction workers are even rarer.

She said last week’s incident was “probably” the second or third accident involving a construction site during her nearly four years at the department.

“I would say our construction sites are very safe,” she said.

Data from OSHA shows 863 inspections involved a fatality or catastrophe in 2024. That is nearly 2.5% of the 34,625 inspections done that year.

The construction site where last week’s incident occurred will eventually be home to a few 100,000-square-foot buildings spanning across five acres in the Peak Innovation Park. The park broke ground in January and will primarily host aerospace and defense companies, according to previous Gazette reporting.

Opus Group aims to construct more buildings over the 18 acres of land it owns south of the airport, according to the previous Gazette report.