Man Buried In Debris Rescued From Building On S. Paca
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Trapped for hours below the rubble, a construction worker was pinned when a house collapsed right on top of him Monday afternoon in south Baltimore.
Meghan McCorkell has more on the rescue mission.
Investigators say a construction crew was working inside the house when the entire thing collapsed on top of them.
For four hours, firefighters dug through feet of rubble, desperately trying to reach a man trapped in a house collapse.
"You can see that the damage is pretty much the entire building is gone," said Capt. Jeff Long in Sky Eye Chopper 13.
"Crash, boom, bang! Black dust everywhere," said Norman Finnance.
Finnance watched the rowhome along South Paca Street come down in front of him. He says four construction workers came running out. Two others were stuck inside.
"I ran around front and I hear the guy in the basement so I broke down door down and I saw the one guy and he wouldn't come out. He's trying to dig for his friend. `My friend's in there,'" Finnance said.
Fire officials say the trapped worker fell through the first floor into the basement. They had to lower cameras into the rubble to find him.
"At first, we couldn't see him at all. We heard him trying to communicate with us and we were able to find, more or less...target in on his area," said Baltimore City Fire Capt. James Oliver.
Then began the tedious process of shoring up the collapsed structure before going in.
Finally, after four hours, the worker was brought out on a stretcher with a thumb's up, and rushed to the hospital.
Neighbors tell WJZ they have had some concerns about the construction project at the house. They say they'd recently seen workers digging out the basement.
"It was the talk of the neighborhood. It was kind of questionable what they were doing in there," said neighbor Rob Lapin.
Building and fire inspectors will now launch an investigation into how the collapse happened.
Fire officials say the trapped worker was conscious and talking with them the entire time. He was taken to Shock Trauma with life-threatening injuries.
Members of the Maryland Shock Trauma "Go Team" were on the scene and able to crawl into the wreckage and administer medical care as firefighters worked to free the man.
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