Trench Rescue Australia
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On Tuesday, June 25th, an adult male was working in a deep excavation in the rear corner of a backyard at a residential property in the suburb of Hillarys, attempting to access a sewer main. The excavation had been dug by hand over several days. It is estimated that the size of the excavation was 1.2m x 1.5m x 2.8m deep. At approximately 14:30 hrs a section of the excavation wall collapsed onto the male trapping him in the hole. The casualty came to rest with his right leg fully extended straight down, buried up to his hip on that side. The left leg was not trapped by sand but caught in an awkward position. The knee was out in front of the casualty, but it was fully bent so that the left foot was under the casualty's buttocks. The casualty was not able to pull himself free and attempted to dig himself out, causing additional minor collapses. This scenario involved shoring of a repair hole.
Repair holes are those typically cut by utility providers to initiate a repair on a service of some description, such as water or gas.
Repair hole shoring can be much more complicated than traditional trench rescues, because they typically are closer to being holes then trenches, and they require shoring in all directions. They may be deep, but are typically shorter in length than a normal trench. Within our organisation, across all agencies, there has always been a tendency, erroneously, to treat these as a confined space rescue and ignore the fact that they are unshored. Instead, we lower personnel or allow them to climb down into them, validating the Normalisation of Deviance concept. They must be treated as a trench incident and they must always be shored.
The holes created by repair crews are always dug in previously disturbed soil (i.e. to install the pipeline in the first place) which makes these scenarios inherently unstable. Shoring this required the use of Paratech struts, low pressure airbags (as backfill) and both full sized and half sized panels to secure all four sides.
08/06/2024
https://www.fireengineering.com/technical-rescue/trench-rescue-understanding-soil/
Using SCIENCE to make trench rescues safer.
Trench Rescue: Understanding Soil - Tech Rescue Training A working knowledge of current soil mechanics research and trench collapse best-practice shoring requirements can help firefighters avoid dangerous mistakes.
16/03/2024
Today is all about South Australia.
2 x incidents that are pretty light on the details, one in Totness ( ) in 2022, the other in Victor Harbor ( ) in 2024. The last incident is , which occurred in Rumble Creek back in 2021 and was previously reported on in this forum. The company involved is subject to an enforceable undertaking that will cost it about $306,000...
Update on the inquest into the 2018 deaths of Charles Howkins and Jack Brownlee:
The families of two men killed when a trench collapsed at a Pipecon work site have been dealt another blow, after an unsuccessful attempt to get the Coroner's Court to look at wider industry safety standards.
At a hearing at the Coroners' Court on Monday, lawyers representing the families of Charles Howkins, 34, and Jack Brownlee, 21, sought to have the inquest also look at industry standards and training around trench work, beyond its scope of the two men's deaths.
Mr Howkins and Mr Brownlee died in 2018 while working at a Pipecon construction site in the Winterfield estate in Winter Valley, after the collapse of a trench they were working near.
After the two deaths, Pipecon, the Ballarat-based builder responsible for the site, was brought to court by Worksafe Victoria, and paid a $550,00 fine after pleading guilty to safety negligence.
At Monday's Coroner's Court hearing, the court heard the families were left unsatisfied by the scope of the WorkSafe prosecution, and sought a more thorough examination of industry standards.
Coroner Leveasque Peterson however said an investigation of industry standards around trench work would go "beyond the remit" of the coroner's court and denied the application.
The inquest into the two deaths, pencilled in for June this year, will look into the circumstances surrounding the rescue attempt of Mr Brownlee, who was still alive when he was pulled from the collapsed rubble.
The inquest will also examine specifically the use of an excavator in digging up a hole to free Brownlee from the rubble, and whether it made things worse for Mr Brownlee, who died in hospital the day after.
Expert reports from geotechnical and geomechanical engineers have been tendered with the court about the forces the excavator would have had on Mr Brownlee.
Lawyer Dale Brown, who was representing the Brownlee family, told the court the family was also funding a separate geomechanical engineer to potentially write a report on the impact the excavator had on the Brownlee rescue.
Other parties present at the hearing included representatives from the CFA, WorkSafe, Fire Rescue Victoria, Ambulance Victoria, the Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority, police, Pipecon and the United Firefighters Union.
The matter was adjourned until May 17 for another preliminary hearing ahead of the inquest beginning in June.
Source: The Courier, February 27, 2024
02/12/2023
Update: Josh Taylor passed away Thursday 7th December from his injuries.
Sand collapse today, Saturday 2 December 2023 in Queensland. QLD112 - A 25 year old man, Josh Taylor and his friends dug a 1.5 metre deep hole on the beach, he fell in head-first, and the sand came tumbling down on top of him. Once he was recovered from the hole CPR was administered and ROSC was achieved after ~45 minutes. See the video here: https://www.9news.com.au/national/man-fighting-for-life-after-falling-into-sand-hole-in-queensland/037acc08-b9bd-4294-bc89-d56e6d01103b
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