Fla. Responders Rescue Trapped Construction Worker

April 01--It took nearly an hour for rescue workers to free a critically injured man who was operating a small front loader at a Davie construction site Friday morning.

The man was pinned between the bucket and the body of the Bobcat he was driving in knee-deep muddy waters at construction of a new home at 1851 Southwest 115th Avenue.

"His condition was alert but serious critical condition," Davie Fire Marshal Robert Taylor said at the scene.

Paramedics put the man, who suffered significant lower leg injuries, on a gurney and loaded him into an ambulance at about noon. He was driven to an awaiting helicopter which flew him to Broward Health Medical Center, Taylor said.

The injured man was a friend of the homeowner who had hired W. Small Trash Hauling Inc. and Bobcat Service to haul in fill. The contractor owned the Bobcat but had refused to level out the dirt, so the homeowner got a friend to do it, said Capt. Dale Engle, of the Davie Police Department.

"It's a friend of the homeowner who was trapped," Engle said. "Most likely there was probably some operator negligence or error on their part."

The site is owned by Roy Real Estate LLC in Davie, according to property appraiser records.

A telephone call for comment to W. Small Trash Hauling Friday afternoon went to voicemail. The company is based in Fort Lauderdale and owned by Whitfield Small, records show.

A call reporting the trapped worker in a rural neighborhood of cattle farms and homes south of Interstate 595 between Hiatus and Flamingo roads came in about 11 a.m.

Rescuers had to stabilize the wet, muddy ground below the Bobcat and then lift it high enough to free the bucket hydraulics away from the body of the vehicle, Taylor said.

Davie Fire Rescue Capt. Miguel Ferrer led a team of 13 firefighters from his agency and Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue through the rescue effort.

"We had an initial fear of not only the Bobcat falling into the water, but my rescuers as well," Ferrer said. "We needed collective brains to make this happen."

The rescue was extra tricky, Ferrer said, because the Bobcat was situated on an embankment of soft sand and water. "We not only had the water issue, but we were also sinking a little bit," he said.

Investigators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration were on their way to look into the incident, Engle said.

This story will be updated. Check back for more information.

tealanez@tribpub.com, 954-356-4542 or Twitter @talanez

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