Virginia man survives fall into peanut pile

NORFOLK, Va. -- Trapped beneath thousands of unshelled peanuts in a warehouse, Floyd Goodman Jr. slowed his breathing to conserve what little oxygen there was, and prayed.

"I was saying 'Lord help me. This is not the way I would like to go. Lord, I know that's not the way you want me to go,'" Goodman recalled Friday from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, where he was listed in good condition.

Two days earlier, the 52-year-old, 15-year employee of Golden Peanut Co. had sunk into tons of peanuts when he stepped off a beam at work.

"Basically, I got sucked in," Goodman said. "I knew there was nothing I could do."

Goodman said he wound up in a squatting position -- protected only by a pair of goggles and paper dust mask he was wearing when he fell. Pushing against the peanuts to make room for his body helped a little, he said.

Still, "The peanuts mashed against my chest, my head," he said. "The peanuts were pressing on me."

Firefighters and company employees worked for more than 90 minutes to free him.

Goodman's daughter, Natasha, said her father would remain in the hospital through the weekend for tests to determine if he had a mild heart attack during the ordeal.