A Chicago Housing Authority plumber died Tuesday following the collapse of a ditch being dug for a sewer line at a South Side public housing complex.
The CHA did not have a permit to dig the ditch to replace sewer lines connected to the Stateway Gardens building at 3739 S. Federal St., said Chicago Sewers Department spokesman Mike Kertez. The man and another plumber were pulled out by firefighters at midday Tuesday.
The man, whose name and age were not immediately available, was pronounced dead at 12:07 p.m. at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, hospital spokeswoman Lauri Sanders said. A second man whom firefighters pulled from the same ditch was in fair condition at Cook County Hospital, a hospital spokesman said.
CHA Deputy Executive Director Ed Moses said at the scene that six men were working on the 8-foot-deep ditch when one wall collapsed sometime after 11 a.m. The workers, three plumbers and three laborers, were replacing a sewer line. Although the first several feet of the ditch’s walls were dirt, the bottom few feet were sand, Moses said.
The man who later died was at first completely covered with earth, said Ronald Richards, 39, who was talking to the workers when the ditch wall collapsed.
The ditch, which was about 20 feet long and about 6 feet wide, ran north-to-south west of the CHA building. The ditch’s eastern wall collapsed on the two men as they and other workers were talking with Ronald Richards, 39, an area resident.
