Mates Rescued Man Trapped in Trench

January 1965

South Yorkshire Times January 30th 1965

Mates Rescued Man Trapped in Trench

A Conisbrough labourer who was off work two years after having his leg crushed by falling steel plates, was buried in another fall on Monday, this time of heavy clay.

Mr. Sam Hughes (47), of 9 Lewes Road, Conisbrough, came through his ordeal without serious injury after spending two hours trapped chest deep in clay at a Chapeltown building site. Mr. Hughes, father of two, was helping to lay pipes at the site off Cowley Lane, Chapeltown, for a Mexborough building contractor, when the sides of the 12 to 14 feet deep trench collapsed.

Thanks to the warning shouts of 27-years-old workmate John Newton, the driver of a digging machine, the Conisbrough man straightened up as the clay fell and saved himself from being suffocated.

“COMING IN”

“I could have been dead right now if John hadn’t shouted, ‘Mind, Sam, – it’s coming in’,” Mr. Hughes told the “South Yorkshire Times” on Tuesday, when he was at home recovering from the shock. “I straightened up – otherwise I would have been buried face down,” Mr. Hughes declared.

Mr. Newton, who was standing near the trench with foreman Mr. Charles Skipper, said, “I saw the shoring give way and I shouted, but the sides came in and buried Sam up to the chest.”

Firemen from High Green and Rotherham Borough brigades, aided by workmen, struggled for two hours to free Mr. Hughes from the saturated clay, soil, and wooden battening. One man spent half an hour holding a large piece of earth from falling on top of the trapped man.

TWO YEARS

In 1957 Mr. Hughes had his left leg crushed and hip dislocated when steel plates fell on him at the Kilnhurst works of Baker and Bessemer Ltd., now closed. He was off work until 1959.

Paying tribute to his workmates, he added, “They worked terrifically hard to try and get me out, and laughed and joked to keep me cheerful.”

Mr. Hughes was allowed home on Monday night after examination at Rotherham Doncaster Gate Hospital, but returned on Tuesday morning for a further examination.