2 Men Saved From Tank’s Frigid Water

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. “We had to comfort him that we were building the system to get him out.”

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.

“It would be like going in the ocean right now,” Nestor said. “You don’t last very long in water that temperature.”

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.

An unidentified co-worker climbed down to help, only to fall victim to the cold water.

Ventura County’s Urban Search and Rescue Team was called to the scene just after 10 a.m. The seven-person team first checked for flammable objects or liquids inside, then 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.

“We don’t want our rescuers to become victims,” Nestor said. “In a confined space, most of the deaths are rescuers because they rush in and become a victim themselves.”

The firefighters secured Tutor’s back and neck and then brought him out, 90 minutes after he went in.

“At times people think it’s a slow process, but it’s very methodical,” Nestor said. “It’s not as easy as saying, ‘Throw a rope in there, grab ahold, and we’ll pull you out.’ ”

While his co-worker walked away, Tutor was rushed by ambulance to Los Robles Regional Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, where he went into surgery Thursday afternoon for a depressed fracture of the skull.

Firefighters attributed their successful rescue of Tutor to intensive training. The 21-person Ventura County team regularly practices rescue missions.

“We place them in environments that are very, very uncomfortable,” Nestor said. “There are confined spaces that we’ve created to stress firefighters to the maximum.”

Hospital officials were optimistic for Tutor.

“Considering what happened to him, it’s amazing that this is what he’s dealing with,” said Jane Misel, a spokeswoman for the hospital. “It’s just a miracle.”