Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994 TAG: 9404220193
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Last year, about 25 rescue workers and firefighters from Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem and Troutville decided to pool their talents in dealing with hazardous rescues.
All had received training in rescuing victims from cars, enclosed areas, cliffs, trenches and other tricky situations.
Those rescuers know the unstable qualities of soil surrounding trenches.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration recognized the instability six years ago when it started requiring steel cages to surround laborers who work in trenches that are more than 5 feet deep or in unstable soil.
Lewis was not using a cage. It was several feet away from the trench when he died.
Since 1989 - when the federal law was imposed - until Lewis died Wednesday, only two people in Virginia had died from trench accidents.
The number of dead is now four. Another worker died Thursday in Fairfax County.
In the Botetourt County incident on Wednesday, rescue workers' precautions slowed their ability to get to Lewis, 49, of Radford. It took them about 21/2 hours to reach him.
Shortly after 11 a.m., rescue workers were called to a construction site on Alternate U.S. 220 near the Roanoke County line.
Larry Logan, a deputy chief for Roanoke County Fire and Rescue, was among the first to arrive.
Logan looked down in the trench and saw Lewis being swallowed by the earth around him.
"He was way down there," Logan said. "We couldn't tell if he was conscious or not."
As other rescue workers started arriving, Logan dropped back from the trench to assume command of the site.
He ordered heavy-equipment operators to turn off their engines. He told police to stop traffic along the highway corridor, which connects U.S. 460 with Interstate 81 near Troutville.
"The vibration from any type of machinery could cause the trench to collapse further," he said.
Mark Light, another Roanoke County deputy chief, took command of rescue attempts.
He was fortunate that five members of his team had qualified as state instructors in trench rescue.
The first thing rescuers did was look into the trench to see if any utility lines had been exposed. A broken gas main could cause an explosion. A snagged power line could mean electrocution.
The first rule of trench rescue is that the rescuers don't become victims themselves, Light said, giving this account of what happened at the scene:
The rescue workers spotted exposed telephone lines, a gas line and a sewer line in the pit.
They placed a ladder across the mouth of the trench and tied ropes to it. They used the ladder as a hoist and the ropes to lift the utility lines so the lines would be less likely to break under the weight of the soil.
When the soil collapsed around the trench, it fell from beneath some the highway pavement. About three feet of pavement was left dangling in the air and could have crumbled at any moment.
Rescuers decided to inflate air bags under the dangling asphalt to give it support. They then had to shore up the side of the trench. Even so, a portion of the trench collapsed four times during the operation.
Rescue workers lowered specially designed plywood on each side of the trench. They put in inflatable aluminum cylinders between the plywood to keep the trench from collapsing further.
Then they lowered a rescue worker into the shored-up trench, where they found that Lewis had smothered.
Even then, rescue workers had to ensure their own safety. They used small shovels to dig the dirt from around Lewis' body. They used buckets to remove soil from the trench.
About 10 two-member teams alternated time in the hole about every 10 minutes. Rescue workers know that fatigue can cause fatal mistakes.
by CNB