A 50-year-old construction worker from Swartz Creek was trapped for more than four hours Tuesday afternoon after the ground gave way beneath him at a sewer installation site in Oxford Township, burying him from the waist down before rescue crews pulled him free just after 8 p.m. He was airlifted to a trauma center afterward as a precaution against crush syndrome, a dangerous condition that can follow prolonged compression of the lower body.
The man was walking along the edge of a trench in the Brabb-Dewey subdivision, located west of M-24, around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday when the earth collapsed next to a trench box, according to CBS News Detroit. The fire chief credited that protective trench box with saving the worker's life, even though he ended up trapped alongside it rather than inside it when the surrounding, unexcavated ground gave way — a hazard officials have flagged as a recurring danger of standing too close to a trench's lip.
The Detroit News reports the man was working on a sewer installation project when part of the trench wall gave way around him. The Oxford Fire Department said many departments and specialty teams from across Oakland County responded to the scene, while the Oakland County Sheriff's Office did not immediately return a message seeking additional information, and Oxford authorities directed further questions to the sheriff's office.
A Four-Hour Extraction
Freeing the worker required the Oakland County Technical Rescue Team, which used shoring panels to stabilize the walls of the excavation and a vactor vacuum truck to carefully suction away the dirt pinning him in place, the report's account notes. The rescue operation stretched more than four hours, with the fire chief maintaining verbal contact throughout as safety officer, and the man was finally freed around 8:05 p.m., after which he insisted on climbing up the rescue ladder himself rather than being carried. The Oakland County Technical Rescue Team operates through the Michigan Mutual Aid Box Alarm System Division 3201, pulling specially trained firefighters and equipment from fire departments throughout the county for exactly this kind of complex, multi-agency response.
Despite being conscious, talking, and able to move his toes, the man was flown by helicopter to a trauma center for evaluation. The decision reflects the medical threat posed by crush syndrome: after more than four hours trapped under heavy soil, restricted blood flow to the lower body can suddenly release dangerous proteins into the bloodstream once the pressure is relieved, a risk that persists even when a patient appears stable on scene.
The Third Collapse in Two Months
Tuesday's incident marks the third trench collapse reported in Oakland County in roughly two months, following two collapses on consecutive days in late June and early July. On June 30, a 35-year-old Ira Township man was rescued after being buried in a trench collapse on Barber Road in Oxford Township while installing field tile for a septic system, an incident Hoodline covered in a rescue-drama report at the time. MIOSHA and the sheriff's office detective bureau launched safety investigations into that site, according to the Oakland County Times.
The very next day, July 1, a 25-year-old Clarkston man was trapped below the waist when the ground gave way around a trench box during sanitary sewer excavation at a residential subdivision in neighboring Orion Township, as reported by ClickOnDetroit. He sustained lower extremity injuries and was treated at McLaren Oakland Hospital. As in the September 1 collapse, a protective trench box was present at the Orion Township site, but the worker was still trapped when adjacent, unexcavated soil failed along the box's perimeter.
A Deadly Season for Michigan Construction
The pattern in northern Oakland County is unfolding against a grim statewide backdrop. Michigan recorded 21 workplace fatalities through late July, prompting MIOSHA to issue official warnings about changing site hazards and to call for daily hazard re-evaluations on job sites, per WSI Talent's reporting on the agency's warnings. MIOSHA is now conducting workplace safety investigations into the Southeast Michigan trenching events.
Excavation and trenching remain among the most hazardous tasks in Michigan construction, accounting for 31 workplace fatalities across the state over the past two decades, according to the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. Under MIOSHA's Construction Safety Standard Part 9, employers must implement protective systems — trench boxes, hydraulic shoring, or sloping — for any excavation five feet or deeper, and must keep excavated soil piles at least two feet back from the trench edge. Those standard definitions were updated in 2024 to strengthen worker safety protections, the department notes.
