Al Zampa

Alfred Zampa ( born March 12, 1905 in Selby, Contra Costa County, California, † 23 April 2000 in Tormey, Contra Costa County, California ) was an American ironworker who worked on various bridges in the San Francisco Bay Area and a member of the Half-Way -to -Hell Club was.

Life

Alfred Zampa began to work as bridge construction workers in 1925 at the first Carquinez Bridge. After its completion in 1927, he worked across the USA at a wide variety of bridges of different sizes. During this time he married Angelina D' Amico, usually accompanied him on the construction site camps and with whom he was married for over 50 years until her death.

In 1934 he returned to the Bay Area and started working on the Bay Bridge, then for Bethlehem Steel at the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 1937, he slipped on a wet steel beam and crashed at one point of the Golden Gate Bridge, where the safety net was hanging just a few feet above the rocky shore, and therefore his 13 -meter fall could slow down just a little. He was a member of the Half-Way -to -Hell Club. Alfred Zampa recovered only with difficulty from his injuries. He could only work again after eight years in the bridge assembly. After working on numerous other major bridges in 1970, he went into retirement.

Alfred Zampa 1987 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge from the media and acknowledged in The Ace, a play by Isabelle Maynard about him and the Golden Gate Bridge.

In 2000, he was the celebrated guest of honor at the groundbreaking for the third Carquinez Bridge, which was named after its completion in 2003 in his honor Alfred Zampa Memorial Bridge. Various commemorative remember him and to the opening of the bridge.