Rescue effort fails to save worker trapped in trench

Daily American Republic

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- What began as a rescue operation this morning ended more than two hours later after city and county crews extracted a man who was buried when the trench he was working in collapsed.

According to Butler County Deputy Coroner Bruce Goin, the victim is identified as Charles Worley.

Although his body wasn't recovered until after noon today, Worley was pronounced dead at 10:48 a.m., Goin said. The cause of death was suffocation, he said.

Worley reportedly worked for a private contractor, which was laying water lines to the new Missouri Department of Natural Resources building near the Westwood Village Shopping Center and the Big Kmart.

The call came into the Poplar Bluff Police Department at 9:54 a.m. on a non-emergency line.

Police officers and the Poplar Bluff Fire Department were both dispatched to the scene.

"The call was that there was a man in a trench and the trench had collapsed on him," said police sgt. Jim Gerber. "He was buried."

Buried under dirt

Gerber said Worley was buried under about one foot of earth, which he described as being clay.

"It was wet; it was packed," he said.

As Worley's co-workers watched, police officers, firefighters and personnel with the Butler County/Poplar Bluff Emergency Management/Homeland Security Agency began digging with shovels and hoes provided by Kmart.