Contractor to Aid Family in Man’s Death : Accident: Investigations continue concerning safety at site of trench that gave way.

Officials with a Fontana construction firm are devastated by the death of a 51-year-old employee who was crushed when an Irvine trench collapsed, and are planning to assist the dead man’s family, a firm spokesman said Thursday.

“We’re all going through a very difficult time right now,” said Tom Salata, executive vice president of Brutoco Engineering and Construction Inc. and the first company official to speak publicly about the accident.

“He’s not just a Social Security number,” Salata said. “He’s very important to us.”

Construction worker Pedro Ornelas Lopez, who Salata said was married with four children and had joined the company in June, was buried up to his neck Tuesday morning when a trench wall caved in and dumped thousands of pounds of dirt on him.

Fellow employees tried unsuccessfully to free Lopez, who had lost consciousness by the time paramedics arrived at the roadside ditch. He died later at Irvine Medical Center.

Cal OSHA and the Laborers Union Local 802 are investigating the circumstances surrounding the accident that fatally injured the Carson resident and left co-worker Alberto Lomeli, 58, of Hawthorne with a broken hip.

State investigators are trying to determine whether proper safety precautions were taken at the work site. City officials said they were told by the company that the trench where Lopez was working would be about four feet deep.

But fire investigators estimated the depth to have been at least six feet. State regulations usually require safety precautions against cave-ins if a trench is deeper than four or five feet, Cal OSHA spokesman Rick Rice said.

Salata said his firm followed all construction regulations.

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“Whatever [Cal OSHA] prescribed, we did,” Salata said. He declined to comment further on the specifics of the accident, citing the pending investigations.

In the past two months, Rice said, three other workers have died as a result of trench cave-ins in Southern California. Two men died in Calipatria when a trench collapsed last month while they were laying a sewer line. The men were buried two feet above their heads. Trench shields--which reinforce the sides--were being used on the job, but “for some reason,” were not present in the area where the men had been working, Calipatria Fire Capt. Trey Faubion said.

“They were crushed . . . and died instantly,” Faubion said.

The third worker was fatally wounded at a San Bernardino job site.

“This type of an accident is happening more frequently than it should,” Rice said. “We have a real issue here, trench safety cannot be taken for granted.”

Depending on such factors as the type of soil, moisture content and the grading of the land, trenches that are more than four or five feet deep require safety guards, and company officials must have a permit. The trench where Lopez had been working did not have a permit and Cal OSHA officials have not yet determined whether one was needed, Rice said.

“The reason that we ask for permits . . . is because this is a hazardous type of operation,” Rice said. “We want to ensure that the employer comes into our office and exhibits knowledge of the necessary precautionary measures.”

In Tuesday’s accident, Lopez and Lomeli were part of a crew working on a $16-million project to build a quarter-mile road underpass along Culver Drive between Deerfield and Walnut avenues. The project was two months from completion when the fatal accident occurred.

“We do have plans to assist [Lopez’s] family,” Salata said. “But I can’t tell you what they are yet.”

A rosary for Lopez is scheduled at 3 p.m. Sunday at the McNerney Colonial Mortuary, 1640 N. Avalon Blvd., Wilmington. The funeral will be 11 a.m. Monday at St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church, 25511 Eshelman Ave., Lomita.