SAN CLEMENTE : Homeowner Compacting Soil Is Seriously Injured in Hillside Fall
A homeowner doing repair work Tuesday on a steep hillside was found unconscious after falling 100 feet to Coast Highway below. Robert Boyer, 52, was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo with shoulder, arm and back injuries, said Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Davis. His condition was not immediately known.
Neighbors said Boyer, who lives in the 2900 block of La Ventana, where a landslide occurred in 1983, had hired several laborers to help him with a mechanical compactor, a heavy piece of machinery that tamps dirt.
Boyer told neighbors that he had left a garden hose on some years ago and the water had eroded a rear portion of his back yard, which he was repairing, said Emory Farr, 62, Boyer’s next-door neighbor.
Boyer was working about 1:30 p.m. when he fell, Farr said.
“He was patting the dirt down with a compactor,” said Farr. “And the next thing I know, there’s a guy who came running up to our house and said he fell.”
Farr said he immediately dialed 911 and went to see if he could help, but by that time, Boyer had tumbled to the bottom of the hillside.
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