Three workers were injured today when part of the wall in a building in Le Mars collapsed.
Wells’ Dairy has hired a Le Mars construction company to remodel the building, to make it the new location of the “Blue Bunny” Ice Cream Parlor. Wells’ spokesman Dave Smetter says the accident happened shortly before noon.
“As workers were in the second level attaching structural beams for a new roof something occured the caused the top portion of the north wall to collapse and thus some of the timbers that were supporting that wall to fall into the second floor,” Smetter says.
There four people in the building at the time of the collapse; three were injured. One worker was buried under debris and rescued by Le Mars Fire Rescue, then taken out of the building on a stretcher that was lowered to the ground by a fire department ladder truck. Fire fighters helped the two other injured workers out of the damaged structure. One lane of the street in front of the building in downtown Le Mars is blocked off with yellow police tape.
The Wells’ Dairy was founded in 1913 and its “Blue Bunny” brand of ice cream was first marketed in 1935. Le Mars claims the title of “Ice Cream Capitol of the World” as more ice cream is produced in Le Mars by a single company than in any other city in the world. The Wells’ Dairy opened its museum and visitors center in 2000.
Reporting by Joanne Glamm, KLEM, Le Mars.
(This story was updated at 3:17 p.m.)
