LOUISVILLE, Ky. — After eight hours of being trapped, Louisville firefighters pulled a construction worker out of a collapsed demolition site late Thursday night.
It was the old community corrections building, slated for demolition by Metro Louisville. Officials said the first floor above the basement gave out just before noon, covering the worker in debris.
Deputy Mayor David James watched the rescue unfold, mostly from a drone operated by emergency responders.
"What was first seen was nothing," he said. "You couldn't even see the helmet."
But firefighters could hear the trapped man who was buried alive when they arrived, three minutes after receiving the dispatch.
Rescuers arrived on scene within minutes. The precarious rescue effort, more than lifting a man out of a hole, kept a landslide at bay with heavy shoring and careful digging.
"They were scooping it out with their hands, literally, and putting it in a bucket because they didn't know the extent of his injuries," James explained. "They didn't want to make those injuries even worse. They didn't want to cause him anymore pain than he was already in."
A paramedic treated the pinned man for a majority of the rescue, intravenously giving him drugs to treat crush syndrome, which essentially poisons the blood.
"[The medic] was in there about seven and a half hours," Jody Meiman, director of Metro Emergency Services, said. "That was probably one of the big things crediting saving his life."
The agency also worked with the Federal Aviation Administration, redirecting air traffic to prevent low flying planes from possibly rattling the area. That rattling might have caused more rubble to fall, which was a large concern during the rescue.
After speaking with the rescued man's doctors, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg believes he will survive.
"Very well," the mayor described of the man's condition Friday. "The medics that were on site yesterday that were treating him while he was being rescued probably helped even further injuries or worse."
The massive rescue effort gave many in Louisville a well-needed sigh of relief after the week's earlier tragedy from the Givaudan plant explosion.
"They got the job done," James said.
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