A worker was injured during an incident at Meta’s Cheyenne data center project last week, prompting an investigation at the $800 million site.
Erin Turbitt, a spokesperson for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), told Cowboy State Daily the agency investigated an Oct. 7 incident reported by VFC Lightning, one of the project’s subcontractors.
Turbitt did not provide any additional details about the incident or the investigation.
‘A Lot Of Blood In That Boot’
Joel Ferguson, a VFC Lightning worker who was on-site that day, told Cowboy State Daily he didn’t see the incident happen but was alerted to it moments later while working overhead in a lift.
“A guy came over there and says, ‘Hey, one of your men is down,’” Ferguson said. “So we ran over there, and he had gotten ran over by another lift.”
Ferguson said his colleague was assigned as a ground spotter, making it baffling how someone tasked with watching for hazards ended up in the path of heavy machinery. What made the situation more confusing, he added, was that the lift sat just a couple of inches off the ground.
“It must have bumped him, and then knocked him down and then drove on top of him,” Ferguson said. “Then the guy backed up back over him.”
When Ferguson and his crew arrived at the scene, he said the severity of his colleague’s injuries was unmistakable.
“It ran him over all the way to his chest,” Ferguson said. “The bone was sticking up the side of the leg; it was just dangling there. Then we lift up his shirt, and his back was all purple and black. It was crazy.”
Despite the injury, Ferguson said there wasn’t a lot of blood because most of it was contained in his colleague’s boot. Initially, he said some people on the scene wanted to cut off the boot.
“They finally yelled, ‘Hey, just leave it! Wait till we get to the hospital,’” Ferguson said. “There was a lot of blood in that boot.”
‘A Lot Of Companies Involved’
Ferguson said his colleague was taken to the hospital and treated for several broken vertebrae and ribs, an internal puncture and a broken ankle. He had surgery in the following days, Ferguson said.
But in the immediate aftermath, Ferguson said the injured man, an acquaintance he’s known since childhood, remained conscious on the ground and showed almost no reaction to the severe damage.
“He sat there and he took it like a champ,” Ferguson said.
VFC Lightning did not respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment.
After the ambulance left the work site, Ferguson sat alone in a company buggy waiting for instructions. He said his supervisor from VFC Lightning eventually told him the crew was being sent home for the day with pay while work was suspended pending the OSHA investigation.
While his specific crew was put on hold, Ferguson said work across the rest of the massive construction project kept right on moving.
“Our company subcontracts from another company who are working for another company,” Ferguson said. “There was a lot of companies involved.”
The site’s general contractor, Fortis Construction, did not respond to Cowboy State Daily and a complete list of subcontractors for the site is not publicly available.
Concerns With Transparency
Lawrence Wolfe, a Cheyenne City Council member representing Ward I, told Cowboy State Daily he doesn’t have access to that information either.
“We don’t get any of that kind of information,” Wolfe said. “Even if we ask, they wouldn’t give it to us.”
Concerns about transparency are not new for the City of Cheyenne.
Earlier this year, Cheyenne was rocked by a wastewater contamination controversy tied to Meta’s data center project, and questions remain about who knew what and when.
The Board of Public Utilities first spotted an unknown bacteria in the city’s wastewater reuse system in January, but the public was not told until late June. The board said the delay in notification was because the contamination posed a low risk to public health and did not warrant a notice that could cause panic.
According to the board’s timeline, Mayor Patrick Collins was told in March, while Councilman Pete Laybourn has said he learned of the problem only on the day the board named the company responsible.
That came on July 2, when the board traced the bacteria to Goat Systems LLC, the corporate entity Meta uses to build the data center, and issued a notice of violation with a proposed $10,000 fine.
The board also stopped accepting wastewater from data center fill-and-flush and closed-loop cooling operations.
Hageman Writes Zuckerberg
A week later, U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman sent Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg a letter with five questions about how the contamination happened and why the public learned of it so late.
The board then promised a press conference but backed out, releasing a timeline and question-and-answer sheet instead. Meta is appealing, arguing the board has not shared its testing data or shown that the project caused the contamination.
For Wolfe, the handling of the wastewater issue reflects the secrecy that has surrounded the project from the start.
“Meta is viewed as a very difficult customer and company to deal with,” Wolfe said.
Meta first approached local officials in 2019, and they signed nondisclosure agreements that kept the project quiet for years before it was formally announced.
“They had meetings in which they wouldn’t reveal their last names, wouldn’t tell who they were working for,” Wolfe said. “So it was only known as Project Cosmo.”
The secret held until Cowboy State Daily reported in 2024 that Meta was the company behind the project.
“They never held any community meetings,” Wolfe said. “The first thing the residents knew was when the bulldozers pulled up. They planned the project in total secret.”
‘Should Never Have Happened’
Despite his broader concerns about Meta and data center growth in Cheyenne, Wolfe said data center construction does not pose the same dangers as other energy development sites.
“Building data centers isn’t like drilling oil and gas wells,” Wolfe said. “You don’t have high pressure, high temperatures, chains flying around or things like that.”
Similarly, Ferguson said he experienced “really strict” safety measures while working at the Meta site, making last week’s injury stand out.
“That’s why it’s a big deal,” Ferguson said. “Because that should never have happened.”
Still, Wolfe said accidents are more likely on high-pressure projects, even when the conditions themselves are less dangerous.
Meta did not respond to Cowboy State Daily before publication.
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
