A construction worker who was trapped inside a partially collapsed trench at a construction site in Stafford has been extricated. He has a possible broken leg and an emergency crew is taking him to the hospital.
Mercy Flight was called but was unavailable due to weather conditions.
The construction site is on Fargo Road, just south of Route 5.
Working without or outside
Working without or outside the box. Dangerous, stupid and against OSHA regulations. He's lucky to be alive.
How do you know he was? Maybe
How do you know he was? Maybe they constructed a box per OSHA regulations and it failed. None of know all the details so we don't know if he was working outside of stated safety regulations.
I work in a dangerous environment every day and even with proper gear, training and equipment in place, bad things can and do happen.
In the 27 years I've been working in boiler rooms, equipment rooms and factories, I've repeatedly been OSHA certified in many areas. Certifications include confined space working, high lifts, fork trucks of all kinds, hold a 1st class stationary engineering license and R4 refrigeration license.
Anyway, I hope this guy is good to go.
Doug, Typical trench boxes
Doug,
Typical trench boxes are prefabricated. All are designed and stamped by an engineer (as per OSHA). If a trench box fails, the person inside will be crushed. 99% of trench failure injuries occur outside the trench box. The attitude is, "I'll only be in there a minute" or "it's not that deep" and the oldie but goodie "it's not going to happen to me".
We both know safety equipment is cumbersome and the young guys like to cut corners. I'm sure this guy will be fine. I hope this injury taught him a lesson that will prevent this from happening again.