Emergency Crew Rescues Trapped Worker After Fall

An Orange County Sanitation District worker was rushed to a trauma center Thursday after falling 10 feet into a concrete vault, where he was trapped until a fire department rescue team freed him.

The accident happened around 1:35 p.m. at a water treatment plant at 22212 Brookhurst St., Deputy Fire Marshal Bob Culhane said.

“He ended up falling 9 to 10 feet to the bottom of the vault and was stuck there,” Culhane said. “He did get hurt pretty badly, but they were non-life-threatening injuries."

The man, whose name was unavailable, was building a wooden form for a masonry wall in a vault when he fell, Culhane said.

When paramedics arrived, a handful of workers were at the bottom of the vault trying to help the injured man. Because of space constraints and limited oxygen, an urban search and rescue team trained for tight-space rescues was brought in and used a crane to rescue the man, said Culhane.

The man worked for a subcontractor, William Lyles Co., which has headquarters in Fresno, said Greg Siggins of Cal OSHA, which opened an investigation into the mishap.

-- City News Service contributed to this report.