A 33-year-old construction worker from Oklahoma was killed Monday evening after being struck by a pickup truck at Meta's massive data center construction site in Lebanon, Indiana. Officials identified the victim as Christopher Lawe, who died in the incident near County Road 400 West and State Road 32.
Lebanon Police Department officers responded to the scene at approximately 5:43 p.m. Monday, according to a report from Fox 59. Police say Lawe was struck by a person driving a pickup truck, and the department's Crash Investigation Team has been examining the circumstances surrounding the incident. Additional details about what led to the crash had not been made available as of the station's report.
The incident occurred at Meta's Lebanon construction site. Mortenson, the Minneapolis-based general contractor overseeing the project, confirmed that a project team member died following an incident involving a passenger vehicle on-site and said it was responding to the incident.
Mortenson Offers Counseling After Fatal Incident
Mortenson said it is making counseling and support resources available to its crew and plans to provide that support for as long as it is needed, per the same account. Details about when construction will resume were not provided. Mortenson was selected alongside Turner Construction and Faith Technologies to build the multi-building, 4 million-square-foot campus, according to Construction Dive, marking Meta's second data center project in Indiana.
The fatal crash occurred at a large construction site. Meta broke ground in February 2026 on the $10 billion, 1,500-acre campus, which is designed to reach 1 gigawatt of compute capacity and was expected to generate up to 4,000 peak construction jobs and 300 permanent operational positions, according to Mortenson. Hoodline previously covered Meta's groundbreaking in Lebanon, detailing the project's scale and the tax incentives tied to it.
A Sprawling Site Inside a Contested Innovation District
The Meta campus sits inside the LEAP Research and Innovation District, a development zone, as Hoodline has reported. The district is a focus of regional development. In June, Boone County Commissioners enacted a one-year moratorium pausing new data center applications in unincorporated areas, according to WTHR.
The Boone County Career Collaborative reflects the scale of the local workforce buildup surrounding the site. The company's development package with the City of Lebanon includes a 10-year, 50% real-property tax abatement and annual Community Impact Payments, details Hoodline reported earlier this year.
Investigation Falls to State Safety Regulators
Private construction workplace fatalities in Indiana fall under the jurisdiction of the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an agency within the Indiana Department of Labor operating an OSHA-approved state plan, according to the Indiana Department of Labor. The agency has authority over private construction workplace safety, while the Lebanon Police Department continues its crash investigation.
Vehicle-related incidents are a hazard on Indiana job sites and in construction nationwide. Transportation incidents are also a hazard in private construction.
The article does not provide details about trauma-hospital availability or patient transport in Boone County. It also does not provide details about any proposed hospital facility. Indiana crash-reporting requirements and the ARIES database are not addressed here.
