HERRIMAN — A construction worker partially buried in a 10-foot trench was being treated for a possible broken leg at University Medical Center Monday afternoon following a dramatic two-hour rescue operation to free him.
The 46-year-old man was inside a trench being dug for a drain pipe at an elementary school construction site near 13800 South and 6600 West along with a 19-year-old man when dirt caved in on him and buried him to his waist.
The 19-year-old man was able to climb out of the trench on his own and was treated and released at the scene. The 46-year-old worker's name was not released Monday.
Construction worker Levi Christiansen was nearby when the trench collapsed. He said the worker's leg was pinned between a large boulderlike clump of dirt and the soil that had caved in on him. The man was pushed down onto his back.
"That's a lot of weight on him. It's really dangerous," he said.
Other construction workers had the man mostly dug out by the time emergency crews arrived. When firefighters got there, they immediately had everyone else get out of the trench for their own safety.
"It was an extremely dangerous situation," said Unified Fire Capt. Mike Ulivarri, who led the heavy rescue mission to get the man out. "It was a worst-case scenario as far as trench situations go."
Ulivarri said the shape of the trench and the area where the excess dirt was being piled made the likelihood of a secondary collapse "very possible."
"People have a tendency to want to jump into the trench," he said. "We don't want to have that secondary collapse."
Rescue crews went to work by first creating a "safe box" around the worker, using wood platforms and braces to shore up the walls to prevent any more dirt from collapsing.
The construction worker was alert and talking with paramedics the entire time. After securing the trench walls, providing oxygen to the man and making sure he was stabilized, rescue crews used their ladder truck, parked 75 feet away, to lower a basket into the trench and carry the man out to a waiting ambulance. The man was then driven a short distance to a medical helicopter.
In all the rescue operation took a little over two hours.
"That's a pretty fast job in the technical rescue world," Ulivarri said.
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