Rescuers vacuum sand to free man trapped in Naperville silo

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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

A supervisor for a Naperville concrete company remained hospitalized late Monday night with what were described as non-life-threatening injuries, after being partially buried that morning in a sand silo.

The supervisor, William Ortiz, 37, was listed in good condition at Edward Hospital in Naperville, a night nursing supervisor said.

Crews from 22 public safety agencies joined members of the Naperville Fire Department in the rescue operation at Dukane Precast, 1805 High Grove Lane, in the Burlington Northern Industrial Park on the city’s far west side.

Rescuers were called about 11:23 a.m. Monday to the company’s headquarters. Dukane Precast manufactures prefabricated cement slabs for buildings under construction.

Fire Capt. Dave Ferreri said firefighters found Ortiz buried up to his waist in “a hopper full of sand.”

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

Ortiz was extricated from the sand sometime between 3 and 3:15 p.m., “after about a four-hour rescue,” Ferreri said.

Fire Bureau Chief Kevin Lyne said in a news release that members of Naperville’s Technical Rescue Team climbed up the catwalk and found Ortiz buried to his waist in the sand mixture and worked to keep him from sinking deeper.

Dukane Precast spokeswoman Lissa Christman on Monday said the supervisor had been seen on the catwalk shortly before becoming immersed in the company’s “dust bin.”

“We’re unsure how he got into the silo,” Christman said. The silo is about 30 feet tall and was half-full of sand at the time of the incident, she said.

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

“The Fire Department is slowly, slowly taking the sand out of the silo,” Christman said Monday at the scene. The supervisor “is conscious, he is OK.”

Lyne’s release stated that the man, once freed, was placed into a rescue basket and removed from the top of the silo and lowered to the ground.

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. Most of the vehicles were still on the campus more than two hours after the fire department issued the general alarm.

A police official who declined to be identified said the reason for the size of the response was not immediately known.

One emergency responder was seen carrying a heart defibrillator into the building, but it was not known whether the device was used.