ST PAUL, Minn. — Saturday, St. Paul Fire crews were back at the scene of a trench collapse that killed two construction workers Friday afternoon.
St. Paul deputy fire chief Roy Mokosso said around 50 firefighters from St. Paul and Minneapolis worked on the scene for just over 12 hours Friday. They dug into the soil and recovered the victims into the early hours of Saturday morning, leaving an hour after recovering their last victim, at 3:30 a.m.
"It’s been a long process and a difficult one," Mokosso said.
Mokosso said shortly after they received the call around 2:30 p.m. and arrived to the scene, they realized the victims had died.
"Just the weight of the soil, the crushing, and potential asphyxia and the time that had already elapsed, we knew that this was going to be a recovery effort and we moved to that mode," Mokosso said.
They first needed to stabilize the trench to prevent additional collapse, putting shoring in place and slowly worked to remove the dirt with hand tools.
"Responders were in the trench for six-plus hours with the first victim, moving dirt away, putting that dirt in the buckets, which was pulled out of the trench," he said. "You can’t use power tools because you can cause additional collapse. You can’t use heavy equipment. You have to use small hand tools and your hands to move dirt away to either the person you’re rescuing, or in some cases, the deceased victim."
Saturday, onlookers laid flowers on a mound of dirt that piled up outside of the trench, as fire crews removed the tools they had used the night before.
"[It's a] very heavy emotional toll for the responders," Mokosso said. "Very heavy and somber."
Mokosso said the two killed were not city contractors and didn't have information on the either the construction group or the private company that hired them.