He was crushed by a gate at Fort Worth’s Dickies Arena. His death could’ve been avoided.
Juan Carlos Julian Jr. died Dec. 7 when he was crushed by a gate at Dickies Arena, where he worked as a janitor.
An investigation by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram shows that his death could have been avoided had the gate been installed according to safety measures recommended by the manufacturer and at least two other organizations.
Julian’s sister, Stefany Carreon, said she was told by her brother’s co-workers that her brother, who was finishing an overnight shift, somehow got locked out of the arena. He tried to get back into the arena, she said, by reaching his hand through the gate’s metal bars to click an open-close switch.
But as the gate opened, Julian’s arm apparently got caught in the bars, and within seconds he was pinned against the brick pillar on the exterior side of the gate. The force of the gate opening crushed the oxygen from his lungs.
Julian’s body remained wedged in a standing position against the gate and the exterior pillar for nearly three hours, before a security guard found him at 7:13 a.m. and called 911. Julian was 24.
A Star-Telegram review of the gate manufacturer’s installation manual shows that the open-close switch should not have been installed within reach of the gate, because such an installation would increase the possibility someone could try to open the gate from the outside and become trapped in the moving parts.
Also, the manual warns that if a gate has gaps between the metal bars of more than 2.25 inches — roughly the width of a small child’s arm — a screened wire mesh should be installed to prevent someone from reaching through the bars. The gate where Julian died has gaps larger than 2.25 inches, but no mesh covering.
After being told the details of the Star-Telegram’s findings, officials from the city, which owns Dickies Arena, and the nonprofit organization that operates Dickies Area, Trail Drive Management Corp., declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation.
The Star-Telegram requested a copy of video footage from a surveillance camera mounted near the gate, citing open records laws. But the city of Fort Worth said it did not operate the cameras at Dickies Arena.
A city official referred questions about the video footage to Trail Drive Management Corp., a nonprofit group formed to build and operate the arena. As of Wednesday night, Trail Drive Management Corp. had not responded to a request for the video.
Carreon, Julian’s sister, says her family is frustrated that the city and Trail Drive Management Corp., have not communicated with relatives about any of the circumstances of Julian’s death. Julian worked for Service First Janitorial, a McKinney-based company that is under contract to provide cleaning services at the arena.
Officials at Service First Janitorial could not be reached to comment.
“We know we can’t bring him back. We want to know why he was on the other side (of the fence),” Carreon, who lives in Fort Worth, said. “No one is calling to let us know what happened. We have to figure it out for ourselves.”
The Star-Telegram visited the exterior of Dickies Arena and determined that the gate machinery was a model 9230-382, manufactured by DKS DoorKing of Inglewood, Calif.
A DoorKing owner’s manual and installation guide for that model gate warns that controls such as an open-close switch “must be located at least ten feet (10’) away from any moving part of the gate, and where the user is prevented from reaching over, under, around or through the gate to operate the controls. Outdoor or easily accessible controls should have a security feature to prevent unauthorized use.”
At Dickies Arena, the open-close switch is mounted directly on the gate’s support post, just a few inches from the nearest moving parts.
Underwriters Laboratories Inc., an Illinois-based organization known globally for setting safety standards, also has published guidelines prohibiting the installing of an open-close switch within reach of an automatic gate. The UL 325 safety standard, which specifically addresses automatic gates, also calls for a mesh covering on gates in which metal bars are more than 2.25 inches apart.
Another organization, ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials), includes warnings about the placement of gate controls (i.e. an open-close switch) and the importance of providing a screen mesh to prevent entrapment in its ASTM F2200 Construction Standard.
The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office made a preliminary determination that the cause of Julian’s death was accidental, and described it as “traumatic asphyxia due to entrapment in electric gate.” A final report is pending.
Carreon says that most of what the family knows about Julian’s death comes from pieces of information cobbled together in conversations with Julian’s co-workers and friends at Dickies Arena, as well as some of the police officers and paramedics who were at the arena that morning.
A Fort Worth police report verifies the location of Julian’s death. The automatic gate — one of at least four electronically-powered gates on the property — is on the southeast side of the arena, off of Trail Drive, near exhibit bays 10, 11 and 12.
According to the police report, an employee at Dickies Arena reviewed security footage from a motion-activated camera, and determined that the gate was closed at 4:19 a.m. and opened at 4:21 a.m.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which often investigates workplace deaths, has begun a probe of the events. The OSHA investigation could take weeks, or even months, and officials will not be available to comment until their work is complete, spokesman Juan Rodriguez said.
The incident occurred hours after the TCU basketball team played in the first-ever basketball game at Dickies Arena, which opened in November. The first event held at Dickies Arena was a Twenty One Pilots concert Nov. 8.
The construction cost was an estimated $540 million. The arena was paid for by a combination of city taxes — capped at $225 million — and private donations raised led by a group of benefactors including Fort Worth financier Ed Bass.
The general contractor for Dickies Arena was The Beck Group, which is based in Dallas and has built many projects in the Fort Worth area.
Other companies involved in Dickies Arena construction include HKS architects of Dallas, McMillian James Equipment Co. of Grapevine and engineer Smith Seckman Reed of Nashville and mechanical contractor TDIndustries of Dallas.
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 8:51 AM.
