Tampabay: Engineer rescued from Skyway

Engineer rescued from Skyway

Knocked unconscious, he is drawn a half-mile in a tunnel to safety.

By PATRICK COOPER

Pepe Garcia was conducting a routine inspection inside the Sunshine Skyway bridge on Thursday morning when something went terribly wrong.

Although accounts differ, Garcia was briefly knocked unconscious inside one of the bridge's support columns.

In a tense 60-minute rescue, emergency workers secured Garcia to a stretcher, then carefully maneuvered him more than a half-mile beneath the roadway before raising him to the pavement and a waiting ambulance.

"There was a lot accomplished in an hour," said Lt. Chris Bengivengo of the St. Petersburg Fire Department. "We knew what we were up against. There was no delay in taking what they needed to take or getting familiar with the environment."

The rescue, which involved 15 vehicles and 30 rescue workers, blocked a lane of southbound traffic, causing a backup of several miles that nearly reached the bridge's toll gates.

But exactly what happened to Garcia, a chief engineer for state bridges in the Tampa Bay area, was in dispute late Thursday.

According to the Fire Department, Garcia, 48, fell 15 feet from a dangling sling as he was examining the column shortly before 10 a.m. Bengivengo said Garcia had to be raised from the bottom of the 50-foot column.

Florida Department of Transportation spokeswoman Kris Carson, however, said Garcia never fell, but instead was standing on a work platform and was hit in the head by the hard-bottomed sling after its wires became tangled. Carson said the platform was only about 12 feet from the top of the column.

Garcia, who was treated at Bayfront Medical Center and released, did not return phone messages left at his home. His wife said he was resting comfortably.

Getting to Garcia through the tunnel under the roadway was a complicated task -- one that rescuers said was both aided and threatened by daylight streaming through slats in the bottom of the tunnel.

The light, which entered from metal plates on the tunnel's floor, allowed rescuers a good view of where they were going in the tunnel. But the light also was a daunting reminder of where they were: Beneath the plates was nothing but air and the bay.

Near the north tower of the bridge, emergency trucks gathered around a temporary metal staircase, used for maintenance, that led to the inside of the bridge. Although a half-mile away, the entrance was the closest one to where Garcia was, fire officials said.

Once inside the northbound span of the bridge, rescue personnel had to bend down to walk through the tunnel and maneuver around the metal-covered holes, said Todd Livingston, leader of the Fire Department's Technical Response Team. Wires from electrical work being done inside the tunnel also had to be avoided.

After reaching Garcia, rescuers secured him in a "sked," a blanket-like stretcher designed for use in confined spaces. The sked secures an injured person "almost like a mummy," Livingston said.

The only way to move Garcia from the column was through the same narrow opening Garcia had entered to perform his inspection. Using a system of ropes and pulleys, Livingston said, rescuers hoisted Garcia vertically.

Taking turns carrying Garcia along what Livingston called a "fairly steep" incline, rescuers hurried him to the maintenance staircase, where fire and rescue workers were waiting.

Although he was temporarily knocked unconscious in the accident, Garcia was moving his arms and talking to emergency personnel as he was moved quickly from the staircase to a waiting ambulance.

Garcia, who has worked for FDOT for 11 years, apparently even made calls on his mobile phone before he was put in the ambulance, Carson said.

"He tried to call the bridge office to let them know what had happened and that he was okay," Carson said. "We're very thankful he's doing fine."

Most emergency vehicles on the scene left by 11:30 a.m. and traffic began to move freely.