Man trapped in collapsed trench in Washington County rescued early on Friday morning
It's pretty close to the best-possible scenario for one worker in Washington County that got rescued from a trench early Friday morning, but many questions still remain after that trench collapsed Thursday night.
Multiple departments here from several counties swarmed the area around the 15-foot trench to help make this rescue Thursday on McKean Ave.
"Thank God he only suffered very minor injuries," Charleroi Borough Manager Joe Manning said.
Late-night rescue operations stretch into early morning
The first call came in around 8:30 on Thursday night, with the man being buried from the chest down.
An array of first responders spent hours trying to free the trapped worker. Charleroi's fire chief, Robert Whiten Jr., says they used a vacuum truck to get down in the trench – where they started sucking out loose dirt.
They got the gear down past the worker to the point where they could harness him.
"They just gave him a little snug – and up he came," Whiten Jr. said.
The fire chief said the worker likely only suffered a broken ankle, and that he was in pretty good shape and pretty good spirits – other than being dirtied from his time in the trench.
The fire chief called the rescue effort a "well-oiled machine."
"Didn't have to be carried out or stoked out – walked right out," Whiten Jr. said.
Following the rescue, he was taken to Allegheny General Hospital.
The chief said he did not want to speculate on how the worker may have become trapped in the trench, but said that OSHA is going to investigate.
Worker trapped in trench leads to massive response
After the first call, dozens of first responder crews from multiple counties were on the scene in Washington County.
Chief Whiten said on Thursday night that the rescue was expected to take several hours, but they had plenty of resources, including a trench rescue team.
"They're going to try to loosen the dirt up around him with an air compressor truck; they call it a knife," he explained. "They'll go down in there, loosen the dirt, and the vac truck will suck that dirt out, and they'll keep going a little bit at a time. The one problem is the dirt's clay, so the clay's like concrete. So they got to use, you know, a little bit of water in there to loosen it up, and at the time, they'll be able to suck that out of there."
Whiten said that this site has been worked on for weeks.
"They've been working on the gas lines in this town for six months, and you can see, if you come into this town, the town's a mess. And I don't know what they're doing, they're doing a sewer line or water line. This has been like this for three weeks, everybody's been complaining," he explained.
Even during the rescue, the worker was described as "being in good spirits."
Contractor working at the site did not have a permit
Charleroi's borough manager, Joe Manning, says a private contractor was working on a break in a sewer line.
"It is a local contractor," he said, also mentioning that the contractor was contracted by Davies Ford.
Manning told KDKA that the third-party contractor did not apply for a street opening permit with the Borough, and that it did not get a Highway Occupancy Permit from PennDOT as well, as McKean Ave. is a state road.
Manning said PA One Call System paperwork shows that the contractor's name is Charles Mrlack.
A spokesperson for PennDOT District 12 told KDKA in a statement, "After a recent phone conversation with the Authority of the Borough of Charleroi, it was confirmed that the work at this location is being conducted by the property owner. This work is being completed without a Highway Occupancy Permit (HOP). We are continuing to investigate this situation, and no more information is available at this time."
Additionally, Manning said officials are not sure yet if a trench box was available when the collapse happened.
He mentioned that the water company came in with inflatable trench boxes after the trench collapse. A trench box would usually help protect workers from something like this.
"We know that there was not one being used," Manning said.
The Borough Manager said there appears to be a major void under the hole, and that the street will probably not be safe for travel until engineers are brought in.
"Avoid this area if possible, let the experts come in – make the repairs they need to make," Manning said.
Manning said part of the next steps on Friday involve figuring out whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) still has control of the scene, or whether PennDOT will be able to bring in its engineers and determine next steps.