2 Workers Rescued from Underground Tank
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NEWBURY PARK — By the time the rescue team arrived, panic had set in.
Curtis Tutor became trapped in the frigid water of an underground storage tank Thursday morning when a piece of concrete fell and hit him on the head while he was working in the dark.
When a co-worker climbed down to help keep the dazed Tutor afloat, he became the second victim.
“He kept saying, ‘Get me out, get me out,’ ” said Kevin Nestor, a battalion chief for the Ventura County Fire Department.
The rescuers were running out of time. The two men were floundering in water estimated in the low 50-degree range, cold enough to kill.
Tutor, 33, of Rosemead was part of a demolition crew working to break up the abandoned storage tank on the old Northrop Grumman Corp. site on Rancho Conejo Boulevard. Tutor’s employer, TEG/LVI Environmental Services of Rancho Dominguez, is cleaning the site to make way for an industrial park.
When a wrecking ball used by the crew became detached Thursday morning, Tutor climbed 30 feet down into the 5-foot pool of water in the tank to reconnect it. That was when a piece of concrete fell from above and hit him on the head.
Ventura County’s Urban Search and Rescue Team built a system of ropes and pulleys to bring the two men up. While they worked, Tutor splashed around silently, apparently too dazed to speak, while the other man kept calling for help.
Finally, two firefighters wearing special suits to protect them against the cold were carefully lowered into the cavernous tank.
The firefighters secured Tutor’s back and neck and then brought him out, 90 minutes after he went in.
While his co-worker walked away, Tutor was rushed to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where he had surgery Thursday afternoon for a depressed fracture of the skull.
Hospital officials were optimistic for Tutor.
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