OLYMPIA, Wash. — Sarah Pantip Wong was riding in an Uber when a construction crane collapsed on the car, killing the 19-year-old in downtown Seattle.
Wong and three others died when gusty winds blew down the crane as it was being disassembled on April 27, 2019.
Two construction workers, Travis Corbet and Andrew Yoder, were on the crane at the time. Alan Justad and Wong were in separate cars crushed by the crane.
Wong, a freshman at Seattle Pacific University, had been studying to be a nurse.
Henry Wong and his wife, Andrea Wang, backed a series of new regulations for construction sites with cranes signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee Thursday morning.
“We said to ourselves, 'we don’t want this to happen to anyone else,'" Henry Wong said.
House Bill 2022 increases crane-related safety training for construction workers, requires road closures to cover areas that could be impacted by a collapsing crane, enables criminal charges to be filed against companies guilty of safety violations, and allows employees to halt work over safety concerns without being reprimanded by employers.
”There were people that day that said, ‘This doesn’t feel right,'" Wang said. "This doesn't feel right. Even an apprentice said, ‘Is this logical?'"
Senator Noel Frame sponsored a similar bill in the Senate and attended Thursday’s bill signing ceremony.
She said the couple’s work helped convince legislators, from both parties, to back the House and Senate versions of the bill.
“They were very moved by, not only Andrea and Henry’s story, but the diligence they applied to this,” Frame said.
The couple said they are returning to Olympia next week to work with state agencies writing and implementing the new rules.