2 Rescued After Cave-In : Accident: Official of rescue team says the sewer construction workers are lucky to have survived.

The first thing foreman John Boos did was say a quick prayer Monday morning when he heard over the citizens band radio that a dirt wall had collapsed, trapping two of his construction workers 30 feet underground.

He jumped into his dusty truck and began a worry-filled dash about a mile down Coast Highway to where rescuers working in the buried trench were trying to dig the victims out by hand. Both men, who were buried up to their necks, were freed about an hour after the 9:40 a.m. accident.

“When something like this happens, everybody jumps in and pulls together and they do what they can do,” said Boos, whose construction crew was laying a sewer pipe.

Thomas Row, 35, of Costa Mesa and Anthony Vidana Sr., 42, of Riverside were eventually freed by co-workers and a Newport Beach Fire Department rescue team. They were taken to Hoag Hospital where they were treated and released, a hospital spokeswoman said. Vidana suffered a broken leg. Row was uninjured.

Fire Capt. Axel Zanelli said it was fortunate that the two men were not crushed to death by the wall of claylike soil. “It could have been a disaster quite easily,” Zanelli said.

The sides of the 40-foot-long trench were reinforced with steel plates, but the shorter walls spanning the 10-foot width of the rectangular hole were unshored. It was one of the unreinforced sections that failed, pinning the men against one of the steel plates.

Construction officials said there was no evidence that the collapsed portion of the trench was not properly secured. They did not know Monday what caused the failure.

Jim Brown, district manager for the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Anaheim, said he could not comment on the accident until an investigation is complete. He said that the construction company, W.H. Ebert Corp., has been inspected twice in the last year on two different jobs and that no citations were issued.

“There are some times where soil does something you don’t expect it to do,” Brown said. “We’ll do an investigation to see if there was any violation of any of the state laws that we enforce.”

Vidana and Row, both Ebert employees, were the only workers in the trench when the accident occurred, Zanelli said. By the time city rescuers arrived, three fellow employees had managed to scoop out enough dirt to uncover the two men to their waists.

Thirteen firefighters then rigged a platform over the hole and lowered themselves down to the trapped workers, Zanelli said. The firefighters continued digging Vidana and Row out with their hands, he said.

Meanwhile, the accident caused a traffic jam on Coast Highway.

Newport Beach Police Sgt. Andy Gonis said three patrol units were called to direct traffic along the highway, where commuters entering Newport Beach from Laguna Beach were backed up for at least a mile.

Row and Vidana were installing pipe segments for a manhole to a sewer line that will be connected to a future golf course, said Ken French, Ebert superintendent. The golf course is part of the 2,600-home Newport Coast project.

The two men had been working on the construction crew for about a year, said foreman Boos, 43. After the rescue, fellow workers were visibly relieved, hugging and consoling each other.

“I have seen a lot of these things,” said Boos, who has been in the construction business for 22 years. “I don’t think you ever get used to it. You try to work knowing that it can happen, (but) you are never prepared.”