Man suffers minor injuries in Charleroi trench collapse
CHARLEROI – A man trapped chest-deep in dirt was rescued Friday morning with only minor injuries after spending five hours in a trench that had collapsed around him in Charleroi.
Emergency personnel from five counties worked Thursday night into early Friday to rescue the man who had been working in a trench in the 800 block of McKean Avenue, in front of Davies Ford in the borough’s business district.
Charleroi fire Chief Robert Whiten Jr. said three borough firefighters jumped into the hole to assess the situation after responding to the rescue call about 8:20 p.m.
“The depth of the hole was 14 feet deep,” Whiten said. “He was below the depth of the trench. He was probably about 15 to 16 feet deep.”
Fire companies with trench rescue teams were called to help extract the man. Emergency personnel from Monessen brought a vacuum truck to help suck the dirt out of the ditch.
Whiten said the Authority of the Borough of Charleroi worked with emergency responders to stabilize the area.
“We temporarily did what we could to stabilize it because our guys were down there initially,” Whiten said. “We had a secondary collapse. Thank God what we did held back the secondary collapse. Then there was another collapse. There were three collapses while that fella was stuck down in that hole.”
The man, whose identity was not released, was taken to Allegheny General Hospital with a suspected broken ankle after being rescued at about 1:40 a.m. Whiten said he appeared to be in good spirits.
“As they were putting the harness on him to pull him out, he said, ‘Let me just climb out of here,'” Whiten said. “He was probably frustrated and cold and just wanted out of there. He got up and started walking on the ladder on his own.”
The man was an employee of an independent contractor doing work at the site. The name of the contractor was not immediately available.
Joe Manning, borough manager, visited the scene Friday morning. He said the cause of the collapse is still undetermined but noted there appeared to be a break in the sewer line.
According to a statement issued later in the day by the state Department of Transportation District 12, the work was being done without a highway occupancy permit.
Until repairs can be made, Route 88 (McKean Avenue) will remain closed to traffic between Eighth and Ninth streets, according to PennDOT. Traffic will be detoured to east Interstate 70, north Route 906 and across the Charleroi-Monessen Bridge before reentering Route 88.
Manning recommended avoiding the area.
“It looks like there’s a major void area under there,” Manning said. “This street is probably not going to be safe for travel until we bring in engineers.
“I know it’s an inconvenience, made doubly so by all of the work that has been done within the borough. Columbia Gas has been making a lot of infrastructure repairs, so traffic has been a major concern for the last several months. This was just an unfortunate situation.”
Whiten said in his 48 years with the fire department, he had never seen such a rescue involving so many emergency responders.
“There were probably a lot of guys there who didn’t do much, but when you get into a five- or six-hour rescue operation, you have to have extra people because the people who initially started are going to get tired,” Whiten said. “It’s better to have too much than not enough.
“He was still living and talking, so it’s all hands on deck. It was just a beautiful operation.”