Worker Rescued After Hours Trapped in Construction Site Rubble

Firefighters in Kentucky have saved a construction worker during an eight-hour rescue operation after he fell into a "void" of rubble on-site.

The worker, whose name has not been released, fell into the 12-foot trench at noon on Thursday. He was working at the site of a former corrections facility being demolished for a new medical campus in Louisville .

N ews crews arrived shortly after the emergency , where they witnessed firefighters attempting to safely extricate the man, who was pinned beneath gravel, dirt, and chunks of concrete.

Paramedics were on hand to place the worker onto a stretcher, cover him with a blanket and transport him to an ambulance .

After an initial assessment, the worker was taken to the University of Louisville Hospital, where his injuries were further observed. He was reportedly conscious and alert, and able to communicate with multilingual emergency staff in Spanish .

"He was in a lot of pain," Louisville Fire Chief Brian O'Neill said. "This is a pretty severe accident."

How Was the Construction Worker Saved?

The complex operation involved stabilizing the surrounding area to prevent further collapse and using tools ranging from buckets to vacuum trucks to remove debris.

"We are moving tons and tons of debris by hand, by buckets," O'Neill said.

He likened the process to extracting someone from the bottom of a funnel. A vacuum truck helped clear smaller debris, while propane heaters pumped warm air into the hole to keep the worker warm during the rescue.

The worker had been part of a team demolishing the former jail with five other crew members. The rescue ended around 8:30 p.m.

Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg described the incident as an "incredibly difficult trench rescue" and said he met with the worker's mother to provide updates on her son's condition.

Fire Chief Describes Operation

The worker's survival was due in part to a small void space that allowed him to breathe.

"He got very fortunate that he had a little bit of a void space around him," O'Neill said.

The specialized trench rescue team arrived within minutes, which also contributed to the operation's success.

The operation required painstaking precision while firefighters worked to clear the debris by hand and ensure the situation was not made worse.

O'Neill called it a "very long, very tedious, very slow-going process to do it safely, to make sure that you do not cause additional injury to the individual."

Once the firefighters got the worker out, there was a "tempered celebration," O'Neill said.

Multiple Industrial Incidents In One Week

This is the second workplace accident to make headlines in Louisville this week.

A fatal explosion at a Louisville manufacturing plant killed two workers and injured another 10 on Tuesday. The cause of the blast in unconfirmed, with tests on chemical issues in the air coming back negative.

O'Neill was also at the scene of the blaze, which ripped through food and cosmetics company Givaudan's Sense Color factory, responsible for producing food colorings.

"This is what our firefighters do," he said. "This is why we took this job. We want to help people. And it's not like the movies."

This includes reporting from The Associated Press