County officials respond quickly to fatal collapse
by LAREIGN WARD, Press Argus-Courier Staff Wednesday, July 2, 2008 9:30 AM CDT
When a trench collapsed Friday, leaving one construction worker dead and another trapped, county officials had to respond quickly and coordinate their efforts to keep the situation from deteriorating even further.
The initial trench collapse was reported about 12:40 p.m. along Shibley Road near the intersection of Hilltop Road in Van Buren as a construction team performed installation work on a new sewer line. Workers went in to try and rescue their colleague, Richard Hardgraves Jr., 48, who was at the bottom of the 20-foot trench at the time of the first collapse. But moments later, another collapse occurred. All the workers except heavy equipment operator Tony Webb, who became trapped beneath the dirt, made it to safety.
Crawford County Sherff's Cpl. Aaron Beshears, who responded to the scene, said, "We knew upon our arrival that (Hardgraves) was deceased. He was under very deep water."
A nearby water main had ruptured and submerged Hardgraves, while water was rising around Webb. Beshears said water "got up to about his neck or a little bit higher."
Emergency officials contacted the Concord Water Department and the water was shut off. But the various agencies on the scene by then still had to rescue Webb while shoring up the walls of the trench to avoid another collapse.
Crawford County Director of Emergency Services Dennis Gilstrap said shoring equipment obtained through a Homeland Security grant and trench rescue training members of the Van Buren Fire Department had received a couple of years ago were two critical ingredients in the rescue.
"There were so many people involved; it was such a dangerous incident," Gilstrap said Monday. "I think we were lucky someone else didn't get hurt. Between (the equipment) and the training they had is probably why it turned out like it did."
Don Baltz, training officer with the Van Buren Fire Department, said 11 firefighters underwent trench rescue training in a 2006 class taught by the Texas Engineering Extension Service at Texas Tech University. Extension service representatives traveled from Lubbock, Texas to Van Buren to offer the training, which Baltz called "very valuable."
Because the firefighters received the training, Gilstrap was able to secure the grant for the rescue equipment, which arrived in Crawford County just about two weeks before the accident.
The fire department used portable pumps to pump the water out of the area surrounding Webb, who, while trapped, was able to aid rescue workers in freeing him. Webb and Hardgraves were employees of Russellville-based Kirby Specialties. Beshears said Kirby Specialties was subcontracted to install the sewer line, although he was unsure who had hired the company.
At about 3:30 p.m., Webb, 44, of Arkoma, was extracted from the trench. He suffered injuries to his lower body and was taken to Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith. He was listed in good condition as of noon Friday.
Webb's life may have been saved by the fact that he was positioned roughly four or five feet above Hardgraves at the time of the second collapse.
"That's how he survived (because) they were able to get the water turned off before he became submerged as well," Beshears said.
After Webb was rescued, workers began focusing on recovering Hardgraves' body. They worked past nightfall before recovering the body around 10 or 11 p.m. Friday.
Beshears said a blood sample was taken from Hardgraves' body before it was sent to a Clarksville funeral home. The blood sample will be sent to the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory in Little Rock for a toxicology report, which Beshears said is standard procedure and may also shed light on how Hardgraves died.
"We're not sure if he died as a result of drowning or if he died as a result of the pressure from the soil," Beshears said. "It was a mixture of soil, mud and slate."
In either case, Beshears said investigators believe death came "fairly instantaneously."
He also said there was no need for a full autopsy on the body.
"(There were) no suspicious signs of death whatsoever," Beshears said. "(It was) very evident what happened (was an accident)."
Gilstrap said the rain-saturated ground likely contributed to the trench collapses. The nearby water line also decreased the stability of the earth, he said.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Little Rock office dispatched an agent to investigate the circumstances surrounding the collapses. OSHA agent Reginald Campbell did not respond to a telephone message left seeking comment.
While such events like those on Friday are rare in Crawford County, Gilstrap was relieved that emergency responders were equipped to handle the situation.
"It was one of those type of incidents (where) you couldn't do everything exactly like the book said, but you did what you had to do," Gilstrap said. "I think it was very well thought-out. Every effort was made to keep everyone safe, including the victim, the live victim, to keep any further injuries (from occurring) and to get him out and I think they did a good job."
Fire department trainer Baltz called the cooperation among the agencies "a necessity."
"If there is no coordination among the responding entities, then a successful incident will never come about," Baltz said. "That's an imperative, that there be coordination among the responding entities because you have police, you have fire, you have EMS as well as any civilian agencies or entities like the company that was digging the trench and stuff. If you don't coordinate among all the people, it's not ever going to work. You would have six different entities or more running in different directions."
Other responding agencies included the Van Buren Police Department, the Kibler Fire Department and the District 6 and 7 rural fire departments.
