June 18, 1988

Accident tested rescue techniques

       Wednesday’s cave-in at an excavation site in White River Township required delicate rescue techniques that firefighters don’t often have a chance to practice.  The cave-in, in the Silver Springs subdivision on Morgantown Road, killed one man and injured another. They were installing a sewer line in a 16-foot-S-inch deep trench when one wall of the trench collapsed.  Rescue workers from the White River Fire Department called for assistance from the Indianapolis Fire Department almost immediately when they got to the site. “Within two minutes of when we arrived, we realized it was out of our league,” said White River firefighter Greg Boyer. But after the rescue was completed, Division Chief Bob Zickler of Indianapolis gave White River firefighters high marks for the way they handled the emergency.  “When we got here, they appeared to be doing everything right,” he said. They had sent several rescue workers into the trench to attend to the injured man and begin digging the two out.  After the rescue was completed, Zickler called the White River and Indianapolis firefighters together at the scene to assess the operation. “Going down into that hole is as dangerous as going into a fire,” he told them. “As long as that hole is open, Mother Nature is going to try to fill it in one way or another.”  That appears to be what happened Wednesday afternoon. Dirt removed from the trench had been piled on the west edge of the hole. And a preliminary investigation by the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration shows the trench collapsed under the weight of that dirt.  When Indianapolis firefighters arrived, they weren’t sure how stable the remaining walls of the trench were. So they kept their trucks a good distance away until they had inspected the trench. Zickler said fire trucks rumbling by would have caused vibrations that could have touched off another cave-in. “You know you’ve had one cave-in already, so there’s no reason why you can’t have another one,” he said.  Bystanders might have wondered why there were only a few firemen inside the hole, digging out the trapped workers.  But Zickler said it would have been a mistake to send any more into the high-risk area. “The first thing is you want to minimize the number of people in the hole,” he said.  The next step, he said, is to make the trench as stable as possible. The Indianapolis firefighters brought 1-inch-thick plywood and 2-by-12-inch planks to reinforce the walls of the trench.  With a small, volunteer department such as White River, Zickler said, the best plan is to send one emergency medical technician to attend to the victim and one other rescue worker to begin excavation.  Since there are numerous construction projects throughout Johnson County, Zickler said it is important for firefighters here to prepare for another disaster like the one that occurred Wednesday. The dry weather this spring makes it even more likely that it will happen again, he said.  (Reprinted with permission from the Daily Journal)

 
(Click on thumbnail to enlarge photo)
 
 

---