BY SUSAN FRICK CARLMAN and BILL BIRD scarlman@stmedianetwork.com wbird@stmedianetwork.com

Firefighters send pipe and tubing up to help clear sand from around a worker at DuKane Precast in Naperville after he fell into the half full hopper on Monday morning. | Brian Powers~Sun-Times Media

Updated: February 8, 2012 2:36AM

Federal authorities on Tuesday launched their investigation into how an employee of a Naperville concrete company came to be partially buried in a silo containing 25 tons of sand.

Investigators from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration went to the campus of Dukane Precast, at 1805 High Grove Lane, in the Burlington Northern Industrial Park on Naperville’s far west side.

“We just got there this morning,” said Kathy Webb, director of OSHA’s North Aurora Area office. “We’re on site doing the investigation.”

OSHA is charged with investigating incidents in which workers are killed or injured on the job.

Dukane Precast supervisor William Ortiz about 11:23 a.m. Monday was buried up to his waist in a hopper filled with sand.

Ortiz, 37, remained Tuesday night in good condition at Edward Hospital in Naperville, a night nursing supervisor said.

Dukane Precast spokeswoman Lissa Christman on Tuesday confirmed the 30-foot-tall silo in which Ortiz became entrapped was half-filled, and contained “approximately 50,000 pounds of sand.”

“We’ve been talking to our employees internally, making sure they’re OK,” Christman said. “We are fully cooperating with OSHA.”

Christman said company President Scott Wehrli visited Tuesday with Ortiz in his hospital room. She added Ortiz is likely to be released Wednesday from the hospital.

Dukane Precast manufactures prefabricated cement slabs for building construction.

Rescue crews from 22 public safety agencies assisted members of the Naperville Fire Department in extricating Ortiz. Fire Capt. Dave Ferreri on Monday said firefighters found Ortiz buried up to his waist in “a hopper full of sand.”

Fire Bureau Chief Kevin Lyne said Monday night in a news release members of Naperville’s Technical Rescue Team climbed up a catwalk, found Ortiz in the sand and worked to keep him from sinking deeper into it.

The rescue operation involved getting Ortiz into a harness and then using vacuum-type machinery from Naperville’s Department of Public Utilities to remove some of the sand surrounding him, that he might be freed without further injury. At least two truckloads of sand were taken out of the bin during that effort.

Lyne’s release stated that Ortiz, once freed, was placed into a rescue basket and removed from the top of the silo and lowered to the ground. Ferreri said Ortiz was freed sometime between 3 and 3:15 p.m., “after about a four-hour rescue.”

“We don’t know how (Ortiz) got in there,” Ferreri said, adding it was his understanding workers were never supposed to be inside the hoppers.

Among the departments that sent units to the site were Addison, Aurora, Bloomingdale, Bolingbrook, Carol Stream, Downers Grove, Elburn, Geneva, Lisle-Woodridge, North Aurora, Oak Brook, Plainfield, St. Charles, Sugar Grove, West Chicago, Wheaton and York Center.

Also on the scene were Naperville Police Department squad cars and the city’s bus-sized Emergency Management Agency Mobile Command Unit.

One rescue crew member was seen carrying a defibrillator into the building, but it was not known whether the device was used.

Webb said OSHA officials have up to six months to investigate the incident and complete their report.

Source: Naperville Sun