Trench Warfare

PACOIMA — In a dramatic rescue attempt that lasted more than seven hours Wednesday, firefighters worked to rescue a trapped construction worker who fell 24 feet into a hole when the embankment collapsed, plunging him neck-deep in soil.

As of 10:45 p.m., the worker, identified by friends as Art Garcia, 45, of La Puente, was still trapped while more than 100 rescue workers struggled to remove him.

Garcia, was working on a water pipeline project at the intersection of San Fernando Road and Branford Street when at about 3:45 p.m. the ground beneath him collapsed.

Witnesses said Garcia and two other workers were standing next to the trench when the soil gave way, plunging them into the hole and covering them with soil. The two other workers were pulled from the trench, but Garcia was trapped under the dirt so thoroughly that only his hand, head and yellow construction helmet remained above ground.

Firefighters lowered an oxygen line into the hole to give Garcia air and comforted him as they used a vacuum to suction out the soil around him.

A distraught Louis Nunez, who worked alongside Garcia for 11 years, described how Garcia was buried seconds after Nunez walked away from him. Nunez and Garcia were among a team of workers for Sunland-based Mladen Buntich Construction Co. installing pipes in Pacoima for the final leg of a massive Department of Water and Power project.

Nunez said he turned away from Garcia and two DWP employees who were looking down into a ditch when he suddenly heard “hollering and screaming” behind him. He ran to the 10-by-30-foot ditch where a water pipe was being put down and saw the two DWP workers 5 feet deep in sinking earth. Nunez said he helped the workers out, then noticed Garcia’s yellow construction helmet and hand sticking out from the ground.

“Please Lord, grab me!” Garcia told him, Nunez said.

Nunez walked deeper into the ditch and tried to remove the dirt around Garcia’s face and helmet as Garcia extended his hand. He handed Garcia a rope and told him to hang on. But Nunez said he realized he was placing himself in danger, and climbed out.

“I wanted to desperately take him out myself, but I couldn’t,” Nunez said. “I still feel bad, just to see someone like that and to let him go.”

Worried that vibrations from a nearby rail line would cause further collapse, authorities stopped a Metrolink train carrying 250 commuters from Los Angeles to Lancaster and called in five Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses to take them home.

“It’s a human life that’s at stake,” said passenger Frank Flores, 37, of Santa Clarita. “It’s no problem.”

The pipeline was part of the DWP’s ambitious East Valley Water Recycling Project, which will use treated sewer water to replenish ground-water supplies. When completed, the project will carry up to 100 gallons of treated sewer water per second from the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys 13 miles to basins near Hansen Dam.

The project, the DWP’s biggest of its kind, was within 200 yards of completion where the accident occurred. Workers were installing a 20-foot-long pipe, 54 inches in diameter. DWP spokesman Walter Zeisl said Wednesday’s accident was the first in the project’s three-year history.

“We’ve done everything we know how to do in following safety procedures,” Zeisl said. “Sometimes, no matter what you do, things go wrong on a construction site.”

Rescue workers took careful steps to extricate Garcia from the ground, worried that sudden actions could cause him to slip deeper.

“[The firefighters] are in a confined space rescue mode,” said Los Angeles City Fire Capt. Steve Ruda. “It’s a very dangerous mode because they have to make sure they don’t have any more collapse.”

Firefighters used a technique known as “speed shoring” to secure the walls to the trench. Hydraulic pumps, designed especially for search-and-rescue operations, expand to press up against supports lining the walls, he said.

“To use a biblical image . . . it’s like Samson pushing against the pillars,” said Ruda. Firefighters used a vacuum-cleaner-like device called an air knife to suck out the sandy soil surrounding Garcia. But progress was slow, as dirt seemed to be creeping in behind the dirt being removed. As a backup plan, firefighters were prepared to cut through the wooden walls surrounding the trench with a torch powerful enough to slice through up to 2 inches of steel, but considered that a more dangerous alternative.

After four hours of work, firefighters began making progress digging Garcia out, clearing the soil down to his shoulders, then his waist. They provided him with something to drink, and he helped direct them on how to remove him.

Two firefighters, suspended by harnesses, also hovered inside the hole, helping to guide the rescue. After spending a long stretch below, one firefighter emerged exhausted and had to be taken to a local hospital for treatment.