Toronto firefighters free construction worker pinned by concrete after hours-long, ‘complex’ rescue

Toronto Fire Platoon Chief Paul O'Brien discusses the hours-long operation to rescue a construction worker pinned by a piece of concrete in Toronto's west end.

A construction worker has been rescued about five hours after being pinned by a piece of concrete at a construction site in the city’s west end on Friday.

Around 3:16 p.m., a CP24 camera captured the injured worker, a 56-year-old man, on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.

Toronto paramedics operations commander Jamie Rodgers said the man’s injuries are considered serious but non-life-threatening.

“He is dealing with multi-system trauma,” Rodgers said. The worker was subsequently taken to a trauma centre for treatment.

Rodgers added that the man was conscious and talking during the rescue.

It is a successful end to rescue operations at the site near Lansdowne Avenue and Davenport Road that began shortly after 10:20 a.m. That’s when emergency crews were called about a worker injured by a collapsed wall.

“I’m pleased to say that, at the five-hour mark, we’ve released the patient from the entrapment. It was a very complex rescue. Our crews did an amazing job,” said Toronto Fire Division Commander Paul O’Brien.

He told reporters that construction workers were doing a dig at the site when a concrete wall came down, pinning the legs of one of them.

According to O’Brien, the space where the worker was trapped was 24 inches wide and about 12 feet deep.

He noted that Toronto Fire’s highly trained technical operations team and trench rescue teams were involved in freeing the worker.

“To get into a site like this, we have to make the location safe for us, for all the rescue workers. We put strong backs and struts in there to support the trench area and make it safe. We had airbags there. You saw a vacuum truck in there that was supporting us in removing any dirt and debris around the worker,” O’Brien said.

Toronto Fire crews also brought in “Tower 1,” an aerial platform that is considered one of the tallest firefighting apparatuses in North America.

“That tower is used as high point for our rope systems,” O’Brien said. “Our technical rescue teams use that to tie off to the ropes. They can use the rope rigging to remove the patient from the location.”

The Ministry of Labour has been notified.

“They will be dealing with that part of the investigation to find out the circumstances behind this,” O’Brien said.