Crews rescue man trapped beneath rubble for 8 hours in Louisville construction site

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A man trapped under the rubble of a structure collapse on East Chestnut Street in Louisville's Phoenix Hill neighborhood has been pulled up to safety after more than eight hours.

Louisville Fire Chief Brian O'Neill said the man was "conscious and alert" when pulled from the rubble. He was injured and taken to UofL Hospital, but he also talked with firefighters when he was rescued.

"All credit goes to the firefighters here in Louisville, the men and women on the Louisville Fire Department that got here, used their skills, used their talents, used their absolute tenacity to get in there and dig that person out," Mayor Craig Greenberg said. "They have to set up all kinds of shoring, so much security. This is a very long, very tedious, very slow going process to do it safely to make sure that you don't cause additional injury to the individual."

The Louisville Fire Department said the collapse happened around 11:40 a.m. in the 300 block of East Chestnut, which is near Floyd Street, just north of Broadway.

City officials said the building is an active construction site, the former Community Correctional Center which is in the process of being demolished for the planned LOUMED Commons, a park and greenspace as part of a larger hospital district east of downtown.

O'Neill said a man working at the site — as a contractor, not a city employee —  fell 10-12 feet through a floor and, while he was breathing and communicating with rescuers, he was pinned beneath the rubble. The man is a Spanish speaker, so a bilingual Louisville firefighter was speaking with him during the process.

"We have our structural collapse technicians in place that are going to be getting him out of there and to the hospital as quickly as possible," O'Neill said. "We just know that we are talking to him and we're doing everything we can to get him out swiftly and safely."

O'Neill said it was a "very, very slow process" to get the man out, citing the need to carefully remove rubble while also ensuring nothing else falls on the man. They had to use their hands and buckets to get him out.

Around 5:30 p.m., fire officials said they made "strong progress" but there was still no timeframe for when the man would be rescued. Just before 8:30 p.m. the man was pulled up to safety.

"So he was conscious and with us the entire time, he's helping to try to dig himself out and was able to describe a little bit about what was going on with him," O'Neill said. "Was tremendously brave but again, it was just a highly technical, extremely difficult, we've seen a lot of trench rescues over the 24 years that I've been doing this. I've never seen anything like this and the fact that it was a successful rescue to a victim that was impinged just all credit goes to the firefighters I'm working out here with today."

Mayor Craig Greenberg said Friday afternoon the man's prognosis at the hospital was "very well" and, while he's still being treated, the hope is that the stay will be short.

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