In this still from KENS 5 video, firefighters can be seen gathering near the trench the worker was rescued from.A construction worker in San Antonio survived a brush with death Monday night after he became buried chest deep in a mixture of concrete and sand.
According to a report from KENS 5 TV, the man and a co-worker were filling a 20-foot trench with flowable fill Monday evening as part of the installation of drainage pipes when they noticed the fill was flowing around a metal plate meant to contain the mixture.
The workers jumped in to put down sandbags, the station reports, but the plate and bags soon gave way.
The co-worker was able to escape the trench but the other man was quickly buried chest deep in the mixture, which acted much like quicksand, San Antonio Fire officials told the station. “It’s concrete, so it’s kind of semi-fluid,” assistant fire chief Robert Mikel told the station. “And as you dig some around, some more kinda comes and takes its place.”
Dozens of rescue workers dug the 60-year-old man out using shovels and buckets and he was eventually lifted out of the muck on a back board. Rescuers were worried the man would suffer the effects of hypothermia due to the chilly temperature and wet concrete. The rescue took 90 minutes but the man was hospitalized in stable condition.
