This is getting tiresome...

Yet another fatality in a trench collapse. Another wife without a husband, another kid without a father. This isn't rocket science guys. People are dying.

A 32-year-old man was buried alive late Tuesday afternoon when the wall of a trench on which he was standing collapsed.

While a rescue attempt was launched almost immediately, the effort had to be abandoned moments before more of the wall fell in, burying the victim under 10 feet or more of the thick, wet, heavy clay, town police said.

Which is why, as with confined space accidents, you're not supposed to jump into a deep trench to try and rescue someone, or you may become another victim.

And, as usual, this was no "freak accident."

The day after a mudslide took a man's life, rescue workers who tried to save him said the trench he slipped into lacked safety features....Donald Koons Jr., 32, of Schoharie, [an employee of JRP Inc.] apparently was trying to install foundation drains into an 11 foot trench when officials said the ground gave way, burying him underneath the heavy wet soil.

Just to give you an idea of what happens to the human body when buried in a trench collapse

"It's been very wet over the last month," [Colonie Police Chief Steve] Heider said about the unstable earth. He said the soil was so wet and heavy, the five-gallon pails used to bring up the dirt weighed more than 50 pounds.

"It's a very dense, heavy clay soil," he said, adding that Koons probably suffocated because of the weight of the dirt around his chest. The actual cause of death will be determined by an autopsy.