Worker rescued from ditch

Jen Lawson

Wednesday, June 18, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

A construction worker digging a trench for a power line was rescued this morning after being buried waist-deep in a ditch that collapsed at a construction site near Fort Apache and Sunset roads.

The man, who was not identified this morning, was dug out of the 15-foot ditch and air-lifted to University Medical Center.

"He was struggling, but he was in stable condition," said Clark County Fire Department Capt. John Steinbeck said, who supervised the rescue.

The man, who is about 30 years old, remained conscious throughout the rescue, Steinbeck said. In fact, when rescuers arrived on the scene after receiving the 6:30 a.m. call, "He was yelling at me to get a backhoe to get him out of there, but we couldn't do that."

Instead, rescuers moved people away to prevent more dirt from being kicked into the ditch, then set up shoring, to keep the ditch from collapsing further.

"If it would have caved in, it could have killed him," Steinbeck said.

Another of the rescuers' concern was that the man would sink into the soil, the captain said, but the dirt remained stable.

Rescuers used an industrial vacuum to remove dirt from around the man until he could be removed. He was freed about 9:30.

"If we had to hand-dig him out, we might have been there until dark," Steinbeck said.

"Our initial assessment is that he's going to make a full recovery," Steinbeck said.

About 100 rescuers from the Clark County Fire Department responded to the call, which came during a shift change, Steinbeck said.

John Fehner, superintendent of Ovation Development Corp., said the victim worked for subcontractor Terra Contracting, which was hired to do excavation work to bury a power line to a 265-unit apartment complex being built on the site.

Fehner said he did not know how the man ended up trapped.

"We'll do an investigation with the different agencies and make a determination," he said.