Two Escape Death After Dirt Boulder Traps Them

A boulder-sized chunk of solid dirt broke loose from an unsupported, eight-foot-deep ditch in Garden Grove on Thursday, pinning one worker’s leg and holding another worker face down for more than 2 1/2 hours.

Four men had been working on a sewer line at 8 a.m. at a 52-acre business park construction site at Euclid Street and Hazard Avenue when the boulder and dirt fell on Jeff Williamson, 19, and Kevin Johnson, 23.

Williamson was freed at 9:17 a.m. and taken to Fountain Valley Regional Hospital with a minor leg injury, said Dave Bertka of the Garden Grove Fire Department.

Johnson was pulled out at 10:45 a.m., shaking and swollen. He was taken to the hospital’s trauma center, where he underwent surgery. He was listed in serious condition with a crushed shoulder and internal injuries.

Neither man had lost consciousness and both were able to talk with rescuers digging their way through. Rescuers stabilized the trench with wooden beams and rubber air bags before hacking at the 5-by-3-foot boulder of hardened dirt.

Twenty-five firefighters from Garden Grove, Orange County and Anaheim departments responded to the call, Bertka said.

Sal Boscareno, a compliance officer for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said the agency would investigate. Boscareno said OSHA requires some kind of support for any trench deeper than five feet, although specific requirements depend on soil consistency.

The non-union project has been picketed for five weeks by the Laborers’ International Union, local 652, which charged that contractors were hiring workers for $5 to $7 an hour, rather than the $15-hourly union wage, union spokesman Gabino Enriquez said.

The union represents 4,800 laborers in Orange County, he said.

Enriquez said Thursday the union requires that any ditch deeper than four feet have supports every four feet. Also, he and other workers on neighboring sites said Gentosi Bros. Inc., the general contractor, should have installed supports with hydraulic braces to support the walls of the ditch.

“I would have never gone in that hole, never,” said Bill Weaver of Fullerton, a worker on an adjacent construction site.

Judy Nelson, the office manager at Gentosi Bros.’ Irvine office, said officials would not comment on the accident. Other workers at the site also refused to talk about it.

Boscareno said OSHA has been cracking down on safety violations involving trenches. Recently, he said, a Dallas firm was fined $250,000 after an unsupported ditch collapsed and killed a worker.

But, he said, policing safety rules is extremely difficult because “there’s no way 434 compliance officers could inspect every site in the region.”

In another industrial accident, the Orange County coroner’s office released the name of a plumber who was killed Wednesday afternoon in a freak accident at a construction site near Mission Viejo.

Jeffrey Holmes, 29, who had come from Seattle to work on the site, died after being hit by a pile of plywood sheets that fell on him. Deputy Coroner William King said Holmes bled to death from severe slashes of his legs and torso.