A construction worker died after being trapped under dirt and a pipe in a trench in Scripps Ranch early Wednesday, authorities say.
San Diego Fire-Rescue received a call about a trench rescue involving two people at a job site on Hoyt Park Drive and Scripps Ranch Boulevard, right across Scripps Ranch High School, at around 4 a.m.
Once they arrived on the scene, they found that one person was able to climb out of the hole but found another person at the bottom. A medic was sent down and found that person had died, said SDFD Deputy Chief of Operations Dan Eddy.
Wood planks on the north side of the trench did not go all the way to the bottom and the weight of all that dirt caused a giant steel pipe encased in concrete to pin one of the workers inside, SDFD Batt. Chief Tommy Charpentier said.
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To get the victim out of the trench, they needed to remove the dirt first by using a vactor truck, usually used to clean out storm drains. The engineers did some testing before a life-pulley system attached to a ladder truck was used to safely lower a member of the fire department's technical rescue team down to recover the man's body.
Eddy said the other person who managed to get out of the hole did not suffer any significant injuries.
The pipe is part of the City of San Diego's Pure Water Project. There are other major water and sewer lines down in the trench as well, so they had to be careful to not rupture any of the those during the process.
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Cal/OSHA was called to the scene to conduct an investigation. Construction in the area will be stopped until their investigation is complete. But the battalion chief told NBC 7 the Pure Water Project stretches across several miles and it's unclear if work on the entire project will be halted or just along this section.
The workers involved have not been identified.
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