A terrifying ordeal unfolded in Maury County this week when a backhoe operator was trapped under a mountain of dirt and rocks, in what officials are calling a rare and catastrophic workplace accident. The operator, who was not identified, found himself engulfed by a landslide while working in a chert pit on Tuesday. He endured almost 15 hours of entombment before being discovered and rescued.
"In over 20 years, this was the first incident like this with a large landslide direct operation covering someone like this," Deputy Chief Richard Schatz of the Maury County Fire Department said, as per NewsChannel 5. The victim was operating heavy machinery, loading chert rock into a truck, when a wall of earth gave way, engulfing his backhoe and smashing the equipment.
The victim's absence didn't go unnoticed for long, his family, alarmed by his lack of communication, took to the Hampshire community in search of him. They encountered his dump truck running idle, but of him or his backhoe, there was no sign. A closer inspection led to the chilling discovery that only a fragment of the backhoe was peeking out from the landslide debris.
Rescue teams answered the call near midnight, hours after the man's ordeal began. Firefighters arrived at the scene on Keg Springs Road where, "miraculously, verbal contact was able to be made with the equipment operator who had been trapped approximately 12 hours before being found," the Maury County Fire Department reported according to Fox News. Underneath the weight of earth and chert — a dense sedimentary rock — the man's survival seemed nothing short of a remarkable feat.
The rescue was arduous, extending into the early hours of Wednesday. In the end, the operator was safely extricated from his premature tomb and transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) where his recovery is ongoing. Deputy Chief Schatz provided details of the incident, ensuring the public of the operator's gradual recuperation, as reported by WKRN. The full extent of his injuries, if any, have not been disclosed to the public to date.
