Police ID worker on Minnesota Vikings apartment job site badly hurt from electrical shock

Police on Thursday identified the construction worker who was shocked and seriously injured while holding an electrical cord and stepping in water on an apartment construction site associated with the Minnesota Vikings in Eagan.

The incident occurred about 1:45 p.m. Wednesday just outside a building at the Viking Lakes residential construction project in the 700 block of Vikings Parkway, police said.

Police identified the man as Aaron M. Welle, 18, who was moved from Regions Hospital to M Health Fairview, where he remained in critical condition Thursday morning.

Welle, of Holdingford, Minn., was working at the time for J-Berd Mechanical, a subcontractor from Sauk Rapids, Minn., according to police.

A caller to 911 said "the victim was not breathing and unconscious," said police spokesman Aaron Machtemes. "The guy stepped in a puddle with an electrical cord."

The man was receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation before being rushed to a hospital, Machtemes said.

Safety officials with Minnesota OSHA are investigating, an agency spokesman said Thursday.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Vikings said, "Our primary concern is for the individual, his family and all of the workers on the site. We are cooperating with the individual's employer and the proper authorities and will share additional information when it becomes available."

The apartment complex, designed to include more than 250 units, is part of the Viking Lakes multiuse development rising on acreage near Dodd Road and Interstate 494.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482