Teamwork, special equipment helped save man who fell into hopper, officials say

Teamwork and specialized equipment helped save a man’s life after he fell into a hopper, on Tuesday. Paulding County Fire & Rescue, The Cobb County Fire Department and the City of Dallas Public Works Department worked together.

Paulding County officials told Channel 2 Cobb County Bureau Chief Michele Newell that frantic calls from employees of the Wayne Davis Concrete company came in early on Tuesday morning.

They said a worker had fallen into a hopper and was buried chest deep in sand. Officials say they knew the man was alive because they could hear him moaning.

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Paulding County Fire & Rescue and the Cobb County Fire Department worked quickly to formulate a plan.

The City of Dallas arrived on the scene with its vacuum truck to suck out most of the sand surrounding the worker in the hopper.

“That day we just utilized the vacuum assembly only, we actually used the remote control assembly to control the vacuum tubes,” said Brandon Rakestraw, Director of the City of Dallas Public Works.

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“If we tried to dig it would’ve fallen on him and we could have buried him,” Said Steve Mapes who is the Paulding County Fire and Rescue PIO.

“We brought our heavy rescue truck along with our collapse unit not knowing exactly what we had. Stormwater sewage piping in order to place over the victim to provide protection, because anytime we go to a collapse, we anticipate a second collapse and in this case we had multiple collapses because the material was so loose. We were using the pipe to protect him,” said Josh Taylor, District Chief of Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services.

The vacuum tank sucked more than 1,500 gallons of sand from the hopper, giving emergency crews the ability to bring the worker to safety.

“We hope he’s discharged by Christmas and he can go home,” said Mapes.

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