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Somers Trench Rescue Recovery : SOMERS - A construction worker trapped in a trench collapse died Wednesday despite the work of dozens of rescue workers to free him. Somers Fire Chief Steven Krause said Juan Oviedo, 52, of Racine, was trapped about 25 to 30 feet below ground, with mud and earth up to his neck. The man was working to put in a sewer line at the site of a future Wal-Mart Supercenter on the northwest corner of Green Bay Road and Washington Road when the trench where he was working collapsed at about 8:45 a.m. Law enforcement and rescue personnel retrieved Oviedo's body from the trench at about 10:15 p.m. "The trench is very deep, about 20 to 25 feet," Kenosha County Sheriff's Sgt. Gil Benn said Wednesday night. "Water just kept pouring in, and they think there may have been an underground spring. It was just a big soupy mud mess." Two huge evacuation trucks were brought in with vacuums that were 10 inches in diameter. "A few members of the family were actually helping, but I think they've left now. They were pretty distraught." Benn said at about 9 p.m. "I am pretty sure it was his wife and two brothers." When rescue workers first arrived they found Oviedo at the bottom of the trench with two co-workers trying to free him. He was conscious and talking, and in their initial efforts rescue workers were able to free him to his chest. But the ground around the construction site was unstable, and mud and water continued to inundate the trench, with soil pushing into the trench as quickly as rescuers could remove it. About two hours into the rescue, at about 10:45 a.m., Krause said, "they had a slide of water and mud" and the man died. "We're now in recovery mode," Krause said at 12:30 p.m., announcing that Oviedo had died. "We're always optimistic in what we do, but we don't always win." Kenosha County Medical Examiner Mary Mainland said Oviedo was an employee of A.W. Oakes & Son Inc., a Racine-based construction company doing excavation work on the site. By sunset, rescue workers were still struggling to recover Oviedo's body. Mainland said if the body was recovered an autopsy would be performed today . According to Krause, there was a protective steel trench box - two, 10-foot trench boxes bolted one on top of the other - in the hole, but the box did not extend all the way to the bottom where the man was working. The soil around the trench, frozen just to about four inches below the surface, was a heavy mix of sand and clay saturated from weeks of rain and snow. Rescuers said it appeared the soil collapsed around the box and inundated the trench from below. "Obviously the ground is very unstable or it wouldn't have happened," Krause said. At the scene late Wednesday afternoon, dozens of firefighters were still at work trying to recover the body. The trench was a narrow slice into muddy ground, about 6 feet wide and about 25 to 30 feet deep. Rescue teams had excavated around one end of the trench, widening it and adding additional supports to make it more secure for recovery workers. "That was a big problem - it was a very deep hole to be working in," Krause said. Inside the trench, firefighters wearing mining lights on their helmets climbed down ladders to get to the bottom of the trench while crews used huge vacuum trucks to suction the wet soil away from the bottom. A Kenosha County team trained to work on trench rescues responded to the scene, along with rescue workers from throughout the county. Special rescue teams from Lake and McHenry counties in Illinois also were on the scene. A.W. Oakes & Son Inc. has been excavating and installing sewer lines at the site, readying it for a large retail development that will include a Wal-Mart Supercenter and a Sam's Club. "They have worked many jobs in the town, and this is the first incident we've had," Krause said of the company. Kenosha County Sheriff's Sgt. Gil Benn said an investigator from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration took over the investigation Wednesday morning. Kenosha News reporter Denise Lockwood contributed to this report.

Somers Trench Rescue Recovery

SOMERS - A construction worker trapped in a trench collapse died Wedne ...

Updated: Dec 20, 2007 7:43pm PST

Salem Wisconsin Fire Rescue Live Fire Training :

Salem Wisconsin Fire Rescue Live Fire Training

Updated: Sep 18, 2007 7:50pm PST

Bristol Wisconsin Fire Department Live Fire Training Highway 50 Several Southern Wisconsin And Northern Illinois Fire Departments WereThere :

Bristol Wisconsin Fire Department Live Fire Training Highway 50 Several Southern Wisconsin And Northern Illinois Fire Departments WereThere

Updated: Jul 25, 2007 2:45pm PST

Salem Wisconsin Fire Rescue Live Burns 06/19/07 : You See Pictures Of Fireworks And Also Some Drugs They Were Destroyed In The Fire When We Lit The House Up, They Were Destroyed By The Kenosha County Sheriffs Department Who Stood By And Watched . When You Order Print's Remember to Check Your Picture Before You Buy It. Set The Crop Or Push No Crop And Cut Picture When You Get It!!!!

Salem Wisconsin Fire Rescue Live Burns 06/19/07

You See Pictures Of Fireworks And Also Some Drugs They Were Destroyed ...

Updated: Jun 21, 2007 6:17pm PST

Wheatland Fire Protection District Disater Box Alarm For Tornado Touch Down : Tornado damage north of Hwy. 50 on 352nd Ave. in western Kenosha County. Tornadoes leave widespread damage in Kenosha County Jan. 7, 2008 Minor injuries exist, no deaths reported KENOSHA NEWS STAFF; updated 8:40 p.m. Tornadoes, strong winds and rain raked Kenosha County Monday afternoon, leaving devastation in their wake. Damage was widespread, from Wheatland to Somers. Moderate to minor injuries have been reported, but no fatalities. The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department said six to eight homes near the intersection of highways 50 and O in Wheatland were severely damaged or collapsed, but there were damage reports from throughout the county. (A report at about 8:30 p.m. said Highway 50 in Kenosha County was closed from Highway 83 west to the Walworth County line.) Emergency dispatchers said the second story of an apartment building at 15th Court and 17th Street has collapsed near Birch Road. A family was reported to have been trapped in a building in the area, according to scanner traffic. We Energies reported around 6:45 p.m. that 4,000 residents in Kenosha and 1,700 in Wheatland were without power. The home of Tim Carpentier, 1707 38th Court, was one that was severely damaged on Kenosha’s north side, where there were numerous reports of damage. Carpentier said he and his daughters, 13 and 15 years old, had just gotten home when they heard the warnings. The girls took the dog downstairs when Carpentier said he heard a big roar. “I was just running down the stairs as the front windows blew out,” he said. Carpentier’s house was severely damaged, with the front of it flipped over its roof. Neighboring houses were also damaged, with collapsed roofs and gas leaks. A car was lifted and blown into another house, police said. A resident of the Wheatland Mobile Home Park said her home was not damaged but that she saw a wall of flying debris headed her way. “It was very scary. We have no basement, so I was pulling mattresses off the beds and we were hiding under them in the hallway,” she said. The National Weather Service reported the tornadoes spotted in Kenosha County on Monday grew out of severe thunderstorms in Illinois. Chris Franks, a NWS meteorologist, said a tornado watch, meaning conditions were favorable for creation of a tornado, was issued in Illinois at 2:35 p.m. As the storm crossed into Wisconsin at Walworth County, it picked up ferocity, leading the service to issue a tornado warning for that county at 3:21 p.m, expiring at 4:15 p.m., and for Kenosha and Racine counties at 3:51 p.m. The Kenosha warning expired at 4:45 p.m. and for Racine, at 6 p.m. The National Weather Service reported the tornadoes spotted in Kenosha County on Monday grew out of severe thunderstorms in Illinois. Chris Franks, a NWS meteorologist, said a tornado watch, meaning conditions were favorable for creation of a tornado, was issued in Illinois at 2:35 p.m. As the storm crossed into Wisconsin at Walworth County, it picked up ferocity, leading the service to issue a tornado warning for that county at 3:21 p.m, expiring at 4:15 p.m., and for Kenosha and Racine counties at 3:51 p.m. The Kenosha warning expired at 4:45 p.m. and for Racine, at 6 p.m. The Illinois tornado watch continues until 9 p.m. Monday. Tornadoes are unusual during winter because they typically form when warm and cold air mix, something more likely to happen during spring, said Franks. The average high temperature in Kenosha during January has been 32. But Kenosha had record-breaking warmth on Sunday and Monday, with unofficial highs at 57 and 64, respectively. A low pressure area brought cold air on top of the warm air close to the ground. The warm air was trying to rise, while the cold air was trying to fall, Franks said. When the warm air broke through the cold blanket, it tended to rise faster than usual, creating some rotating winds and leading to the tornado-like weather. Kenosha Unified School District interim superintendent Joe Mangi reported at 6:30 p.m. Monday that Bose and Harvey elementary schools did not have power. He said We Energies had been contacted, and officials’ assumption was that power would be restored by Tuesday classes. However, Mangi said a decision would be made at 5 a.m. Tuesday on whether those schools would hold classes that day. He also said there was debris in the parking lot of Bose Elementary School that needed to be removed but there wasn’t any thought of possibly closing that school. Wheatland Center School and St. Alphonsus School in the Wheatland area will be closed on Tuesday. Meanwhile, jurors in the Mark Jensen trial in Elkhorn were moved to the basement in the middle of testimony Monday afternoon. According to the National Weather Service, a flood warning for the Fox River is in effect until further notice.

Wheatland Fire Protection District Disater Box Alarm For Tornado Touch Down

Tornado damage north of Hwy. 50 on 352nd Ave. in western Kenosha Count ...

Updated: Jan 08, 2008 7:10am PST

Paris Fire Department Wisconsin Live Fire Training :

Paris Fire Department Wisconsin Live Fire Training

Updated: Jan 11, 2008 8:15pm PST