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Park City emergency crews rush to rescue worker in Kearns Boulevard trench

Rescuers secure a worker to a stretcher on Friday morning after he sustained an unspecified injury while below street level where a pedestrian tunnel is under construction on Kearns Boulevard.
Jay Hamburger/Park Record

A worker sustained an unspecified injury on Friday morning while below street level where a pedestrian tunnel is under construction on Kearns Boulevard, requiring a rescue operation, the authorities said.

The Park City Fire District and the Park City Police Department mounted a major trench operation on a busy stretch of the street outside the Park City School District campus as rescuers rushed to the scene at 10 a.m.

The firefighters and Search and Rescue personnel encircled the location while some of them went below street level to secure the man before he was lifted out of the trench.



The rescuers put the man on a basket and attached the basket to a crane the crews are using for the tunnel work itself. The crane slowly lifted the basket and turned toward the other rescuers. They retrieved the basket and helped lower it to the ground before carrying the man, who was on a rescue board, to a nearby stretcher. He was then taken to an ambulance and was transported to Park City Hospital.

The Fire District said the man suffered an injury to an extremity while working in the trench. Details about the injury and the circumstances that led to the injury were not available.



Tricia Hurd, a Fire District public information officer, said the district’s crew fortified the walls of the trench using materials carried by the heavy-rescue unit, a standard practice in that sort of operation.

They then secured the worker, who was between 15 feet and 20 feet deep, put him in the rescue basket and attached the basket to the crane cables. The crane delicately lifted the basket to the waiting emergency personnel.

The Police Department directed traffic on Kearns Boulevard as the rescuers worked. There were numerous police and Fire District vehicles at the scene, slowing traffic on the road.

The Police Department said the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration was contacted as a standard procedure after a workplace incident like the injury on Friday.

The pedestrian tunnel is a major construction project along a busy stretch of Kearns Boulevard, which is part of the state highway system and also known as S.R. 248. The tunnel is designed to offer School District students and others a safer alternative for crossing.

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