Story Created:
Feb 5, 2013 at 10:55 PM CDT
Story Updated:
Feb 6, 2013
A man is rescued Tuesday afternoon after falling into a man-made hole on a construction site at a local campus.
Construction workers are building new tennis courts at Laredo Community College before an unexpected injury occurred to one of their own workers.
"Firefighters responded quickly, within five minutes they were here and put a harness on the gentleman and pulled him out."
Construction workers on the scene say the hole was about 22-feet deep.
The fall caused him to injury one of his legs.
"He's conscious right now. Maybe a broken right leg, but he's fine. He's conscious."
Crews on the scene say the man was joking with rescue crews as he was being pulled to safety.
Fire Captain Eloy Vega said the crews are highly trained for these accidents to happen.
"Several aspects of what we call technical training. Our fire fighters who are highly trained and specialized in technical rescue with specialized ropes and harness and other pieces of equipment safely removed the patient from the hole."
The safety consultant said the workers followed all safety precautions.
"They did have covers on these holes. He was trying to remove the cover that pertains to them and it was just a freak accident."
The rescue only took a few minutes once crews responded.
The construction workers were working on new tennis courts at Laredo Community College when the accident happened.
