Update: Man Rescued from Trench is in Fair Condition

By: Kristin Bauer - Email

Updated: Sun 8:06 PM, Mar 24, 2013

It took firefighters one hour to rescue a 38-year-old man stuck in a trench near 90th Street and Old Cheney Road in Lincoln.

The trench is next to a home under construction in a residential area on Sawgrass Drive.

Friends sat for nearly an hour as dozens of rescue workers dug to free Jason Olsen from a ten-foot trench.

When crews arrived on scene, Olsen was covered to his chest in soil.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue says he was in and out of consciousness.

"When your trapped in that amount of soil it compresses and makes it so you can't take a full breath," said Battalion Chief Eric Jones.

Olsen faced the risk of compression injuries and hypothermia.

After supplying him with oxygen, the rescue squad worked to keep the trench from collapsing further-- Something Jones says happens all the time.

"We make sure there isn't any machinery running within 300 feet of the collapse zone," he said. Vibrations carry underground and will cause further collapse."

Because of the size of the hole, LFR crews called in a vacuum truck to suck the extra dirt from around Olsen's feet. However, Olsen wasn't an employee of the construction company that came to help. Extra lumber was brought in to reinforce the walls

"It was just a very large hole. It was a larger than what we find typical in the city limits type of trench collapse."

Once he was freed, he was taken to the hospital.

Sunday evening 10/11 learned that Olsen is in fair condition.

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