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Worker rescued after cave-in
By LEON M. TUCKER and CHRIS TISCH CLEARWATER -- During the more than three hours that Brian Doane was buried waist-deep in a hole Tuesday, rescuers said he mostly complained about the gnats buzzing around his face. But rescuers had greater concerns. In addition to making sure Doane didn't slip into shock from the lack of blood circulating to his legs buried beneath him, crews had to work to prevent more sheets of dirt from caving in on top of the 31-year-old construction worker. "He's lucky," said Frank DeFrancesco, district chief in charge of special operations for the Largo Fire Department. "There's no telling how deep that hole could have gone." And if the problems on the ground were not enough, nearby storm clouds threatened to roll in and turn the already unstable ground into mush. Earlier, Doane, who officials said works for Driggers Engineering Services Inc., was helping guide a drill into the ground at the site at 100 N Osceola Ave., where the new Clearwater Public Library is being built. The drill, which is attached to a truck, bores 60 to 80 feet down to find bedrock, then is brought back up with samples of the soil, said Gary Johnson, the city's director of public services. This information is being used in the construction plan for the library, which will be built on a foundation of steel shafts slicing down to bedrock. Doane was standing near the drill as it was pulled out of the ground, when it apparently hit a void, Johnson said. The earth collapsed around him, sucking him down with it.
"It doesn't happen every day, but it does occur," Johnson said. The 3:50 p.m. emergency call by construction workers was almost immediately upgraded to a technical rescue, which summons rescue officials from all over Pinellas County. Many of the rescue workers are part of the Pinellas and Hillsborough Technical Rescue teams, which are specially trained for such emergencies. Within an hour, more than 20 rescue vehicles clogged the streets, while firefighters and other rescuers scrambled around the scene. Five television helicopters buzzed overhead as police taped off the block and diverted traffic. Dozens of bystanders looked on. "You call the world and you send back what you don't need," said Clearwater Deputy Chief Mark Weinreich. Rescue crews feared that if they got too close to Doane, their weight would collapse the hole, causing more dirt to slide on top of him. They put a ring of large sheets of plywood around the hole, which helps more evenly distribute the weight of the rescuers so they don't collapse the hole. Then they brought in large boards to fit around the hole vertically, stabilizing its walls and preventing dirt from sliding on top of Doane. A Clearwater fire truck with a long boom then swung a rescuer over the hole and lowered him down. For about 11/2 hours the unidentified worker scooped buckets of sand from around Doane in an attempt to free him. "While we were digging to free him, it caused a cave to develop," DeFrancesco said. "So for every shovelful we took out, two shovels fell in." The rescue did not succeed until a city truck equipped with a giant vacuum rumbled onto the scene. Workers assembled an aluminum extension pipe to the hole, which quickly sucked out the dirt around Doane and finally freed him. Just before 7 p.m., when rescuers emerged from the hole with the injured Doane, about 100 people gathered in the parking lot across the street cheered as paramedics wheeled him to a waiting ambulance. The ambulance then took Doane to a helicopter that had landed just south of Coachman Park an hour earlier. Doane was taken to Bayfront Medical Center, where he was treated and released Tuesday night, hospital spokeswoman Cassandra Morrell said. City officials said Doane had complained of leg pain while he was in the hole, and may have suffered a fractured leg. "His injuries do not appear to be life-threatening," Morrell said. Johnson, who is also overseeing the $20.2-million construction of the library, said Tuesday's incident would not affect the remaining work to be done on the 90,000-square-foot facility.
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Headlines From the Times local news desks Howard Troxler |
