Worker Injured Trying to Shore Up Sliding Home

A worker helping to stabilize a hilltop home over a slide area was seriously injured Wednesday when he fell 60 feet into a hole.

James Howard, 23, of Rancho Cucamonga fell feet-first and suffered a broken vertebra in his back and a broken ankle, and was listed in fair condition at a hospital.

Howard, a member of an around-the-clock work crew, was pulled from the hole with the help of a crane used to dig the holes in the effort to shore up the back yard of the house whose swimming pool was slipping down the hillside.

Howard was one of the construction workers trying to shore up the $500,000 home sitting precariously over a landslide area. Three families have been evacuated from homes below.

While the landslide appears to have stabilized, rain could endanger the area, said city engineer Bill Huber.