Firefighters Rescue Utility Worker Trapped In Collapsed Cavern

SPRING, TX — A utility worker who became trapped while working underground at a construction site Tuesday afternoon, was freed after nearly six hours of careful digging by several local fire departments.

Firefighters from Spring, Houston, The Woodlands, and Klein responded to a report at about 2:45 p.m. of a man trapped underground at a site at the Gleannloch Farms subdivision on Champions Forest Drive and Spring-Cypress Road near the golf course.

Mike Gosselin, spokesman with the Klein Fire Department, said the utility worker was operating a backhoe and digging a 12- to 15-foot trench on a utility project beneath a parking lot adejacent to the subdivision.

Gosselin said the man got off the backhoe and went into the trench to check on something, and found himself trapped when the walls of the cavern collapsed, burying him up to his waist in thick muddy clay and dirt.

“The dirt and the clay along that wall was very unstable,” Gosselin said. “We don’t want to further complicate that, and that’s why we are taking our time.”

Fearing that more dirt could collapse the hole, firefighters worked slowly and methodically to keep the hole stable and the man alert and talking.

Gosselin said a paramedic from Cypress Creek EMS was lowered into the hole to start an IV on the man, to keep him alert and hydrated while firefighters worked to free him from the hole.

At about 9:15 p.m., firefighters freed the 35-year utility worker from the trench and taken by LifeFlight to an area hospital.

“He’s been very good. He was actually joking around,” Gosselin said. “He’s very happy to be out of that hole.”

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