Albe Bassett
Fire Department Eyes Improved Rescue Capabilities After Contractor’s Death on Valley Road
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New Canaan’s fire chief said last week that the recent death of a contractor doing excavation work on Valley Road has the department looking again at its rescue capabilities.
Though the department was at the job site at Silver Hill Hospital on Friday, Dec. 22 and pulled the man out in 15 minutes following a trench collapse, he perished from internal wounds sustained at the time of the accident, according to Fire Chief Albe Bassett. The man “happened to be working on a fire protection line for one of their [the hospital’s] buildings which they—unfortunately—they can’t shut it off, so they were doing an emergency repair and the worker was struck and trapped by dirt inside the hole, about 12 feet down,” Bassett said during a special budget-related meeting of the Fire Commission, held Feb. 8 via videoconference. That’s “a very challenging rescue for any fire service, but for us with lack of equipment and staffing it was much more difficult,” the fire chief said.