In 2022, construction worker José Alfredo Gómez fell two stories from the home he was working on, he says. A group of men on a boat in a nearby lake saw and called an ambulance. This was against the wishes of the jobsite supervisor, who insisted on transporting him in a work van, which had no seats and was filled with tools, Gómez says. The ambulance arrived, but Gómez’s injuries were so extreme, emergency personnel decided it would be best to airlift him to a hospital in St. Paul, Minn., where he was able to be treated, he recalls.
