Photo: Photo by Janis Cleugh, Tri-City News. Mariana Valencia-Palaciao and Sebastian Gomez are both from Colombia. The couple met in Sherbrooke at Christmas 2009 when her family were visiting relatives The BC Supreme Court has awarded $875,000 to the widow of a construction worker who was fatally crushed by a cement pump truck in 2016. “The loss was a tremendous tragedy for the young family,” Judge Matthew Kirchner said in the July 11 ruling. On March 11, 2016, a construction crew, including Gerson Alvarado and Surrey resident Sebastian Gomez, was pouring concrete on a townhouse in Chilliwack. To reach far corners of the site, concrete was pumped from a 12-wheel truck through a hose attached to a movable metal arm. The weight of the truck’s stretched boom was stabilized by four cantilever legs. Defendant KCP Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. build the truck. Gomez’s job was to place the concrete as it poured out of the hose. The ruling said a steel collar-plate securing one of the legs to the truck snapped without warning. “The component bent and collapsed, removing a critical support from the upper arm. The boom, loaded with wet concrete, propelled the truck into the air as it fell until the truck was balanced only on its front right tire,” Kirchner said. The explosion fell on Alverado and Gomez. Alverado was paralyzed from the waist down and Gomez, 24, was killed. Gomez’s widow, Mariana Valencia-Palaciao, was among those suing — on her behalf and on behalf of the couple’s two young children. The couple were both from Colombia, and Valencia-Palaciao used their meager savings to pay for her husband’s funeral in that country.
