CALGARY -- The mother of a three-year-old girl crushed by a piece of falling corrugated metal is questioning the safety of a downtown construction site and looking for answers as the investigation continues into her daughter's tragic death.
Mariana Krsek, whose daughter Michelle was killed, while her husband Miroslav and son Eric, 7, were seriously injured by a six-metre-long piece of metal that fell from a building under construction, said if it wasn't her family, it could have just as easily been someone else's.
"We just had two seconds, exactly two seconds to think ... then it was really, really bad," Mariana told TV crews outside Alberta Children's Hospital yesterday.
"I'm pretty disappointed because some people do this work without safety in the middle of downtown.
"If it was not my family, for sure it was another family in a car.
"My son is OK right now. He's starting to move a little bit, but my husband is in pretty bad shape."
The family was out for a walk Saturday night with Mariana's relatives, who were visiting from Romania.
They wanted to show them the Calgary Tower and were walking along 9 Ave. S.W., when the metal fell from the site of Le Germain, a 20-storey hotel building under construction.
Michelle's uncle Paul Muresan said he saw the piece of metal falling from overhead and tried to warn his brother-in-law, but it happened too fast.
"Miro was very close to Michelle and I saw the plank coming down and ... I said 'Miro, it's coming something from the roof' and he's looking ... and Michelle was just destroyed on the ground," he told TV crews.
"It's unbelievable.
"You can't walk, you can't be safe -- it's very difficult to understand something like that."
He said he was able to save his own kids but it was too late for his niece.
"I saved my kids, I saved my nephew, but that's all I could do," he said.
"God knows why."
Police are still investigating the incident and Insp. Nina Vaughan said cops are working with Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) investigators to determine whether charges will be laid.
"Our role is really to determine whether there was any overt negligence that occurred," she said.
"We're just interviewing witnesses that were at the scene and then we'll work with OHS to determine all the facts."
If the construction company is found to have contravened the OHS code, investigators have up to two years to lay charges, said OHS spokeswoman Fiona Wiseman.
But she said because a worker wasn't injured or killed in the incident, it's more likely police would impose any charges in this case.
Meanwhile, the Krsek family has set up an account for donations to help raise money for Michelle's funeral.
Anyone wishing to donate can visit any Bank of Montreal, Account #3091188 under the name Miroslav or Mariana Krsek.
KATIE.SCHNEIDER@SUNMEDIA.CA
