Two workers, brothers-in-law, fall to their deaths while hoisting apartment railing

Two men died after falling from an apartment balcony in Incheon where they were installing a safety railing.

The two were brothers-in-law who had worked together, making the accident all the more tragic.

According to the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency's wide-area crime investigation unit, A, 68, the head of a window and door construction company, and his employee B, 71, fell 18 meters to the ground from a sixth-floor balcony of an apartment in Jakjeon-dong, Gyeyang-gu, Incheon, at around 11:25 a.m. Wednesday.

Both men were in cardiac arrest when paramedics transported them to a hospital, where they were later pronounced dead.

Police said the two had removed an existing iron safety railing from the balcony and were using ropes to haul a new railing up from the first floor to the sixth when the accident occurred. The railing measured more than 3 meters wide — too large to fit in an elevator.

Police believe the two lost their grip under the weight of the railing and fell simultaneously. Investigators suspect they had been hauling the railing up by hand rather than using aerial work platforms or other equipment, likely to cut costs.

The company A ran was a small operation. B, who died alongside him, was his brother-in-law.

"We plan to request an autopsy from the National Forensic Service to determine the exact cause of death," a police official said, adding that investigators would look into the precise circumstances of the accident and whether safety regulations had been followed.