Baseball player dies after Harrisburg dugout collapse

A Harrisburg area boy lost his life when a makeshift dugout collapsed on him at a local baseball field.

The 19-year-old baseball player was rushed to the hospital on Monday afternoon after he was reportedly struck in the head by a wooden beam from the roof of the dugout. An early investigation is underway to determine the cause of the collapse and whether this temporary structure should have been allowed at the park.

Tragedies like these can be prevented by ensuring strict compliance with all building codes and construction standards.  Far too often, these accidents are the result of inattention and from prioritizing cost over safety.

The SMB team of building collapse, structural failure and construction accident attorneys has represented victims and their loved ones in numerous mass-casualty – often fatal – building collapses in Philadelphia and nationwide. It has obtained the three largest recoveries in building collapse cases in American history: $1.2 billion in the 2021 Surfside condominium collapse that killed 98 in Miami; $227 million in the Market Street building collapse in Philadelphia, and $101 million resulting from the Tropicana garage collapse in Atlantic City. NJ. The firm has also collected multi-million dollar recoveries in the 2015 collapse of a building onto the Lululemon store, Walnut St., Philadelphia, the structural failure of a railing at the Army-Navy game at Veteran’s Stadium, and the collapse of the Kimmel Center, when it was under construction.