SPOKANE, Wash. — Paul and Sandi Vetter got a call this afternoon from their daughter's fiance. It was a call that changed their lives forever.
"He just said there was an accident on the job site where Ana was working and she's gone," Sandi said.
Their daughter, 27-year-old Ana Vetter had been working on an expansion project at the Spokane Tribe Casino for the last few months after becoming a journeyman carpenter.
"So excited about being in Spokane and being a part of the union," Sandi said. "She gets up at the crack of dawn and goes to these job sites and she just loves it."
Ana was also engaged and had just bought a home in Nine Mile Falls. She loved the outdoors, her fiance and four dogs. Her dad says Ana never took a shortcut when it came to safety.
"Safety was one of her major, major things and for this to happen, it's just devastating," Paul said.
Around 9:30 this morning, 911 dispatchers received multiple calls about a collapse at the construction site.
Many casino guests reported hearing the disaster.
"It sounded like an explosion, just a really loud and the ground shook," One guest said. "I saw the firetrucks and the ambulance and the first responders here, so I knew someone obviously was hurt, or worse."
Swinerton Construction is building the expansion and says crews experienced a formwork collapse. Formwork is the mold used to form concrete into structural shapes. No other workers were hurt.
"We want to keep the family in our thoughts," Airway Heights Police Chief Brad Richmond said. "All the construction workers as well."
At 5 p.m. Tuesday, nearly 8 hours after their daughter was killed, Paul and Sandi said they still had not received a call from authorities or the construction company letting them know about Ana. Their future son-in-law was the one to tell them.
"We've learned more from your coverage than anything we've learned from any direct information," Paul said.
They still have a lot of questions and want people to remember their daughter, who they say helped paved the way for other women working in construction.
"Whenever she met a challenge, she would buckle down and go through it," Sandi said.
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