On the bright and early morning of April 15, the birds were chirping, the dogs were barking and one prospective Construction Management major was doing good work tearing down the Language and Literature building. That was until he realized the mistake he had made. “I was managing the demolition, everything was going well,” he stated, “but then I realized that something was off. I was standing there thinking man, I don’t remember the Language building being this tall, and that’s when it hit me”

“It” was a 200-pound piece of rubble that had broken loose from the half-demolished building. The weight of the rubble instantly crushed the Manager to-be, breaking both his legs on the spot. “So I was sitting there, my legs trapped, and everything was kind of a blur.” He continued, “But as I came to I realized that The Answer was staring me in the face the whole time!” 

“The Answer” was the name of the local dog who lived in the SURC. Just to the left of The Answer however was a sign that read “El Gato”, the name of a Chipotle-styled Mexican restaurant in the SURC. He realized in that moment what he had done, but at this point, it was already too late.

The explosives went off before he could say anything, trapped under the rubble he was forced to watch as the SURC crumbled around him. “I was terrified, rock was falling everywhere, I couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, I’m lucky to have made it out alive!” And Lucky he was, as once the Ellensburg Fire Department showed up they were able to rescue him with only minor injuries. 

We spoke to one firefighter who was on the scene that fateful morning, “I was dumbfounded. How could somebody make a mistake that big, and who even uses explosives in a public area for demolition?” This question was shared by our staff, so we reached out to the Construction Management major once more, “Alright so maybe I skipped a few classes in demolition week? How was I supposed to know Central would hire me for a project this big? I’m not even a sophomore yet!”

So why had CWU hired him for the project? They had this to say about the incident, “We really wanted to spend the money to hire a real contractor and get this done right, but sadly it just wasn’t in our budget.” The question must then be posed, would the campus not benefit from the reallocation of certain funds to avoid issues like this in the future? The CWU President, a position that in 2018 exceeded $450,000 in annual pay, in response to the question said, “No.”