Aaron Berkowitz – General Assignment Reporter
It could have been a lot worse for the four lucky workers who escaped the trench that collapsed in front of West Campus, said Battalion Chief William Gould.
“This could have been a very dire outcome,” said Gould.
Three of the four workers were able to free themselves and with the help of a few helping hands, but the last man required assistance from the New Haven Fire Department. SCSU Police also made their way to the scene when they got word of the accident.
“Clearly there was assistance needed down there so we went over to secure the scene,” said Campus Police Chief Joseph Dooley. “The workers being safe was our main concern, everyone left here to the hospital but seemed to be okay.”
Detours, police cars, and news crew vans were all the eye could see on Tuesday morning at approximately 9:30 a.m. through 11 a.m. on Farnham Avenue and Wintergreen Avenue. Cars were signaled to turn away from the Wintergreen Garage up until 11 a.m. by the officers standing next to their cars that blocked off the street.
The workers were replacing a steam line that heats West Campus dorms according to Robert Sheeley, associate vice president for Capital Budgeting & Facilities Operations, when the trench collapsed at around 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday.
“There were two main things we had to worry about when this happened,” said Sheeley. “The first is the well being of the four workers, and they’re on the way to hospital so that takes care of them. Now we have to look at exactly what went wrong here.”
Sheeley said the work to the heater still needed to get done so workers got back to work after the site was cleared.
“We still have to provide heat for the resident hall,” said Sheeley.
Staff from the Office of Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have been requested to come respond to the scene as well, according to reports done by NBC. The Safety and Health Administration’s website says there are different safety guidelines to follow as the depth of the trench increases.
“Do not enter an unprotected trench! Trenches five feet (1.5 meters) deep or greater require a protective system unless the excavation is made entirely in stable rock. Trenches 20 feet (6.1 meters) deep or greater require that the protective system be designed by a registered professional engineer or be based on tabulated data prepared and/ or approved by a registered professional engineer.”
Tweets by the university provided students and staff with traffic reports during the incident and assured that no student or staff members were involved.
Eli Reeves, senior social work major, said he got caught in the traffic even after seeing the tweets on his timeline.
“I just saw all of the cop cars and traffic piled up, but it’s good to hear that nobody was hurt seriously,” said Reeves. “It’d be nice to know what happened even though everything looked like it was under control.”
Reeves said traffic moved slowly on Wintergreen because people were driving by slowly to checkout the scene.
“The police and fire department had the situation handled by the time I drove by. Traffic wouldn’t have been half as bad if everybody just let them do their jobs and keep it moving to where they had to go.”
Watch the video from NBC Connecticut.
