Jose Rodriguez Garcia of Mission, Texas, was
killed yesterday when a 10-foot deep trench collapsed on top of him. But hey, what are you going to do? Accidents happen.
Santa Cruz Irrigation District Manager Roy Garza described Rodriguez as “a good worker. A very good worker; dedicated to his job; always on time. Just a good darn worker.”
Garza says his workers always practice safety. “They're careful. They don't horse around. They don't play around during the job. It just happened we had an accident,” he said.
The reporter, in this case, thought to ask a few more questions:
But some rescue workers say the accident could have been prevented. Edinburg firefighter Ubaldo Perez said, “If there would've been safety measures before it occurred. Prevention would've been the best scenario.”
Firefighters say a 10-foot trench requires safety measures. They believe there should have been reinforcements so the dirt would not cave in.
But that would have been hard work, according to Garza.
Garza tells us why reinforcements weren’t used. “Okay, it is hard to provide in this particular job. You have telephone lines. They go this way. You have to get a back hoe. This job would've taken an hour to do and maybe they didn't put the right protection they needed,” he said. When asked if they should have, he replied, “I believe so.”
Yeah, didn't want to spend another hour. Oh well, maybe next time.
