Worker freed, taken to hospital after being trapped under concrete slab

A worker was transported by air ambulance to hospital after he was trapped for hours under a concrete slab on a Flamborough construction site.

It was a complicated rescue that ultimately involved dozens of people from multiple agencies: paramedics from Hamilton and Ornge, Hamilton fire, police from Hamilton and Halton, a team of trauma specialists from Hamilton General Hospital and crane operator.

Fire crews and paramedics worked to free the worker, who was critically injured, after being called to the scene around 11 a.m., said Hal Klassen, Hamilton Paramedic Service operations commander. They were joined by members of the Hamilton Health Sciences trauma team at the site. 

Emergency crews eventually had a large crane brought to the scene to try to lift the slab away from the trapped man.

The incident

The site is near the intersection of Progreston Road and Green Spring Road, near Carlisle. The site was in a creekbed, below a small dam on private property under repair. 

Hamilton Fire Dept. spokesman Dave Christopher said there were two workers at the site, checking out the dam, when the incident happened.

"It appears a slab of concrete sheared away from one of the supports," Christopher said, "and trapped one of the workers, trapped his legs."

The slab was about 7 metres by 7 metres, and about 20 centimetres thick. Christopher said he guessed it weighed several thousand pounds.

Christopher said the fire department's air bags used to move vehicles after collisions weren't strong enough to lift the slab. 

"There's no way they're going to lift it and they can lift a car," he said. 

So they brought in a crane, and with paramedics directing the movements to best keep the patients stable, the team was eventually able to free the man.

He'd been trapped for about two hours.

The Ministry of Labour is investigating.

'It's not very frequent that it happens'

The decision to send a trauma team out to a site outside the hospital is rare and a measure of the complex circumstances of the rescue.

It  happens less than once a year, said Teresa Smith, the vice president of adult regional care for Hamilton Health Sciences, and executive lead of Hamilton General Hospital.

"It does happen, but it's not very frequent that it happens," Smith said. "When I've seen it it's when there's been a crush injury, or somebody's trapped and they're having trouble extricating them and they don't want to move them."

Smith could not talk about this specific case but said, the risks when someone is crushed or trapped could be many: Shock, possible cardiac arrest, loss of blood.   

Paramedics on scene discern that the team is needed, and call dispatch, who alerts the hospital.

The trauma team leader – usually a surgeon – is paged  and then decides what other surgeons and medical staff supplies and equipment are needed.  An ambulance picks them up and takes them to the scene.

'It obviously isn't an OR environment'

For Thursday's case, Halton Police brought in blood to the scene as requested by the medical staff.

"It obviously isn't an OR environment but they do what they can," Smith said. "It's a matter of weighing the risks."

Back at the hospital, staff make sure the emergency department is ready if the patient can be transported in, and possibly an operating room in case the patient needs to go straight in to surgery.

There's a "huge amount of coordination" that goes into a case like Thursday's, Smith said. She didn't offer specifics on what went into the treatment today out of concern for patient privacy, but said she'd heard good things about the team's effort. 

 "Of course, we always all think about the poor individual that was out there needing our help."