WHITMAN, W.Va. — A Logan County asphalt worker is being treated at a trauma hospital after being trapped in sand Thursday morning.
It happened at Southern West Virginia Asphalt, Inc.’s Whitman Plant, according to Ray Bryant, chief of operations for Logan County Emergency Ambulance.
“We arrived on the scene and the person was in fact trapped in a sand hopper from his waist down,” Bryant said. “We initiated a rescue. We had to do a trench and silo-type rescue.”
A post on the Cora Volunteer Fire Department Facebook further explained the rescue:
“Emergency personnel are working quickly and carefully to stabilize and shore up the loose material in order to safely free the individual. Due to the complexity of the incident, specialized rescue operations and equipment are being utilized on scene,” the post said.
Bryant said crews had to be careful during the rescue.
“There was a lot of loose material around this individual so we had to sure all of that up to keep it from caving in on the patient as well as the rescuers,” Bryant said.
The worker, who was conscious the entire time, was taken by helicopter to a trauma hospital as a precaution, Bryant said.
He said prior training paid off.
“Everybody done the rescue by the book. This is stuff we’ve trained on over the years. It was a very successful rescue, everybody worked as a team and we got the job done,” Bryant said.