Laguna Beach : Backhoe Operator Killed Repairing Summit Drive

A backhoe operator working to repair a collapsed section of Summit Drive in the city’s Arch Beach Heights area was killed Wednesday when he jumped into a ditch and was pinned there by his own machine.

Barney B. Wyatt, 40, of Trabuco Canyon was shoveling dirt into an eight-foot ditch about 12:20 p.m. when the footings on his backhoe gave way and the machine began to slide into the ditch, Deputy Police Chief James Spreine said.

Wyatt jumped off the huge earth-moving machine, but as he was trying to climb out of the ditch, the shovel at the front end of the backhoe fell across his back and trapped him, Spreine said.

Other workers at the site freed Wyatt “within seconds,” Spreine said, and he was taken by helicopter to Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo. But doctors there pronounced him dead at 1:06 p.m., minutes after his arrival.

Wyatt was working for Kisling Construction Co. of Laguna Beach. Company owner Mike Kisling said Wyatt had worked for him at various jobs “for a couple of years,” and was an experienced backhoe operator.

Kisling said he had no idea what caused the backhoe to slip. “It would really be tough to speculate,” Kisling said. “There was nothing that I could see out there that warranted something like this.”

Kisling’s company was repairing a 20-foot stretch in the 1100 block of Summit Drive that collapsed and sank about 10 feet after an underground water main broke late Saturday night.

With Summit Drive closed at least until this weekend, residents of the isolated Arch Beach Heights area of the city have been forced to use Nyes Place and Alta Vista Way for access to their homes.