Trench Collapses and Traps a Construction Worker
On Tuesday afternoon, rescue workers responded to a call of a construction accident. A construction worker was trapped in a trench. After being rescued the worker was rushed to a nearby hospital. The worker was trapped for nearly three hours after the trench collapsed.
The local news reporter, reported that rescue crews had spend almost thirty minutes trying to secure the trench so it wouldn’t cave anymore. The worker was trapped up to his chest in gravel, sand, and broken road bed. Two of the officers on site jumped in with a couple of co-workers to desperately try to free the man from being trapped.
The Chief of the local Police Department stated that the worker had some asphalt that had fallen on to his shoulder so they had to clear all of the asphalt away so they could try to dig the worker out. At first they thought they could just dig the man out but a closer look proved them wrong and they immediately called the station.
After clearing most of the debris off the worker, they had dug him out to his waist, then one of the firefighters grabbed any board that he could find to shore up the collapsing trench wall so they could slowly and carefully dig the man out.
The Chief said that the man was in a lot of pain and said that one of his legs were wrapped around a gas main. He thinks that the man probably had a broken leg, ankle and a shoulder injury.
Rescue workers were able to strap the man to a board and lift him out of the trench. The man was rushed to a helicopter for a ride to the hospital.
Workplace Inspectors from the State and Federal will come out and look over the job site to try to figure out what went wrong. This particular job was a sewer project for a local housing development tat is being built. The inspectors will try to figure out why the trench walls collapsed and whether the man was inside or outside the trench when it happened.
Daniel A. Gibalevich
DAG Law Firm
