Trench collapses, traps worker from shoulders down for 2 hours, SC fire chief says

Two construction workers became trapped when a trench collapsed at a site outside a high school, according to a South Carolina fire chief.

School officials learned about an accident outside James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, about 100 miles northwest of Columbia, just before 10 a.m. on Oct 21, according to an email sent to McClatchy News by a spokeswoman for Spartanburg School District 5.

Two workers were inside the trench when the “walls caved in,” spokeswoman Melissa Robinette wrote. The school is undergoing “major” renovations and rebuilding, she said.

The trench was about 18 to 20 feet deep, and one worker was trapped up to his shoulders, Duncan Fire Chief Barry Frost told WYFF4. The other worker was trapped from the waist down, according to the outlet. Rescue crews shored up the walls of the trench while they dug the workers out, the outlet reported.

It took a total of two hours and nine minutes to free both workers, Frost told WSPA. One was airlifted to a hospital, the outlet reported, and the other was taken to a hospital by ambulance.

Frost told WSPA that the workers are “extremely lucky. Most people do not survive this.”

Robinette wrote that both of the workers were expected to recover.

“Thank goodness, with (the rescuers’) help, the incident had a safe ending, as both men are expected to be ok,” she wrote.

This story was originally published October 21, 2022 at 7:31 PM with the headline "Trench collapses, traps worker from shoulders down for 2 hours, SC fire chief says."