Worker freed from trench in Fords, considered stable OSHA is investigating concern over substandard hole BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer KATHY CHANG An ambulance awaits the worker who was freed from a trench four hours after it collapsed around him outside a home in Fords on Aug. 29. The man has been listed as stable. WOODBRIDGE - A 34-year-old Plainfield man is in stable condition after he became stuck from his chest down in a construction trench for approximately four hours last week when he was doing work on a sewer line at a Snyder Road residence. Dirt caved in three ways around Leobardo Tellez-Velazquez at 12:48 p.m. Over 200 curious onlookers came to watch the rescue on Aug. 29. At approximately 4:10 p.m., emergency personnel were able to pull Tellez-Velazquez to safety. The watching crowd applauded the rescue. "This was nearly a tragedy," said Mayor John E. McCormac, who was at the scene shortly after the incident occurred. "He [Tellez-Velazquez] fell in a very unusual angle; however, the response by the enormous amounts of emergency teams helped save the man's life." Tellez-Velazquez was airlifted to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and was listed in critical condition that night. He later was upgraded to stable. McCormac described the mood as calm during the four hours as the special operation units on trench rescues from the Colonia, Keasbey and Perth Amboy fire departments dug the approximately 8-foot-deep trench with small shovels and their hands. "They had to shore up the hole, laboriously digging with their hands and small shovels, making sure they did not hit the victim's body," said Township Director of Emergency Management Walter Hanks, who was one of the first emergency personnel on the scene. "The reason for the amount of time was to ensure the safety of the rescuers as well as the victim." Bill Stellmach, fire chief of the Colonia Fire Department, added that the amount of time it took to rescue the victim was normal. "Sometimes it takes even longer, depending on the types of dirt we have to work with," said Stellmach, who was one of 15 members of the trench rescue special operations units at the scene. Stellmach said the incident could have been prevented with the proper shoring. "The hole was below the OSHA [federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration] requirements," he said. The investigation is still under investigation with OSHA. Hanks said that after the dirt caved in around Tellez-Velazquez, two of the contractors on the job with him tried to dig him out. There were four or five contractors including Tellez-Velazquez working to dig a 10-foot-long trench to run a lateral line from the sewer at the residence to the main sewer line in the street, township officials said. "All you could see was his head," said Hanks. Township officials filled and secured the hole that night and hired a contractor to finish the private contractual job at the Snyder Road residence. In the township, only two fire departments have members who are specialized in trench rescues. Eighteen members of the Colonia Fire Department and eight members of the Keasbey Fire Department are part of the trench rescue special operations units, who also do confined space rescues and technical rope rescues. "The special operations unit started nine years ago," said Stellmach, who said the firefighters in the unit train 50 additional hours a year on top of firefighting training. Stellmach, who said they have been involved in other successful rescues, but also some unsuccessful ones, said the overall budget for their department is for training and equipment. "What is challenging is there is so much training and equipment that goes into trench collapse rescue that it is hard to justify the training and the equipment with the amount of incidents that do happen."