# be careful out there



## dayexco (Mar 4, 2006)

PLEASE, watch your safety practices....this would be a HORRID nightmare to live with 

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=704_1335949753


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## The Coastal Craftsman (Jun 29, 2009)

Looks like they must have been down there a while before being dug out as the ground was bone dry. Must have been horrible being covered like that and still alive


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## jmacd (Jul 14, 2009)

Thats disturbing to watch.


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## wyoming 1 (May 7, 2008)

jmacd said:


> Thats disturbing to watch.




Yep. Seeing that makes you appreciate OSHA


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## PipeGuy (Oct 8, 2004)

BCConstruction said:


> ...Must have been horrible being covered like that and still alive


The odd thing is that you can work in a very dangerous environment like an unstable excavation and have no sense of fear because the hazard is outside your realm of experience. Look at the rescue workers in that video. They have no sense of the still very real danger of collapse that they're exposed to.

When I was 18 I regularly worked in unsupported, unsloped, trenches. I did it without any sense of fear (indeed it was often with a certain sense of bravdo) until one morning around 8:45 when I was "covered up" in a trench 15' deep and 30" wide from top to bottom. 
The trench was unshored when it initially collapsed, pinning my feet on either side of the 8" pipe I was straddling as I "laid" it. In the moments that followed it continued to collapse around me, quickly covering me to my armpits then gradually to my neck.
Over the course of the next hour or so various people, including fellow crew members and local rescue squad workers, worked (at times frantically) to free me. At one point the rescue squad covered my head with a towel (to this day I think because they didn't want to see my face when I died) and the trench walls collapsed enough to cover me over for a few seconds until those who continued to risk their own necks dug the dirt away with their bare hands.
When the rescuers got me dug down from behind to just below my knees they decided that the circumstances were sufficiently grave to merit attempting to pull me clear (my feet and lower legs were pinned against the pipe below) with the force of the excavator and risk severe injury to my legs. As it happens, a practical joke only a few days earlier left the inside of the yellow boots I was wearing saturated with oil and I literally pulled right out of them. 
I never had any sense of horror about the accident (I credit that to personal beliefs). I know however that it deeply effected some of those involved. Most notably the battle hardened Viet Nam vet (a Marine to boot) who ran the excavator on our crew. As I came to learn later he started a multi-day drunk that afternoon and never got back in the seat of an excavator. And this was a guy who lived to "run a hoe". 

Guys who climb down into nasty holes in the ground rarely (if ever) get paid enough to risk doing so. And it's always a shame when someone loses life or limb doing something that in no way merits that kind of demise.


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## rino1494 (Jan 31, 2006)

Great story PG. It is an unfortunate situtation. Luckily you are still here to share your wealth of knowledge and experience.


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## Upchuck (Apr 7, 2009)

Pipeguy

Someone was looking out for you that day. I might never climb in a hole again if that happened to me. Whenever I see someone taking risks like that I think of a saying an oldtimer that worked for us said. "Too dumb to know or too crazy to care"


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## peteo (Jan 8, 2011)

It always amazes me when I see something like this. Like Pipeguy I used to do some "brave" things until I watched a trench cave in. Fortunately nobody was in it as it was lunch break but I learned a valuable lesson that day. Now that I've learned a thing it two there's no way in hell I'm going into a ditch without a trench box. I just want to know how some people can honestly look at their employees and tell them that proper shoring "isn't in the budget" or whatever other excuse they want to use.


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## svronthmve (Aug 3, 2008)

Tragic......just tragic......

A grim reminder of how we often take things for granted each day. We often forget that life as we know it can change in a heartbeat!

Now go hug your wife & kids. And tell them you love them!


Thanks dayexco for posting this.


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## Allblueskys (May 4, 2012)

That has to be one of my biggest fears.

This is always why I try to be as careful as possible on every job site.


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## Carly (Feb 23, 2012)

*hole*

When I was young, I alway did things to gain the experience because it ment more to me than having someone tell me about it. I cut a hole in the ice and jumped in to feel what happens ( it was on a lake 5' off shore in 4' of water-never in danger). I shocked myself with household current, I kicked a hornets nest to see if I could out run the things, etc... One of the last things I did was climbed into a gravity flow corn trailer, held onto the top lip and had my friend open up the hatch to dump the corn. I was swallowed up by the corn in the trailer, as I was told I would be. My friend shut the hatch as planned and I was ok, but that feeling of being crushed and smothered says with me every time I climb into a hole, no matter how deap. I am not a risk taker at work, safety for everybody.


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## TimNJ (Sep 7, 2005)

Uh, your just plain nuts.:wacko:


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## asbestos (Mar 22, 2006)

I am a trench rescue technician and as pipe guy said those rescuers are buckling to become victims. There is no way our team gets in a trench like that. You get it stabilized, and shored first. Many (if not most) collapses like this are unsurvivable. Risk a lot to save a lot and risk nothing to save nothing. I still commend the bravery of those guys for going in there, just not their common sense.


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## HUI (Jan 21, 2011)

I agree. I was once a vol fireman and we had some trench recoveries near our area. Never a good situation. If I remember right 60% of trench fatalities are rescuers. And it is about the same for confined space rescue


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