SAFETY
Back on
Solid
Ground
Carelessness kills: Eric Giguere nearly died on
the job when a trench caved in and buried him
alive. It’s an experience many would try to forget.
Instead, Giguere shares his story with thousands
of workers every year, hoping to save just one
from a similar fate.
By Lisa Gordon
When Eric Giguere tells
his story, he wears an
18-year-old pair of work
boots. They’re scuffed, dirty and worn – but
to him, they’re an important reminder to
never cut corners when it comes to safety
on the job.
Giguere was wearing those same boots
on Oct. 4, 2002, when he was buried alive
while working in a six-and-a-half-foot deep
trench. Just 27 years old at the time, he’d
been a union laborer in Geneva, N.Y., for five
years. This was his first trenching job.
“I had no training and I was that typical
bullet-proof kid. I thought nothing would
ever happen to me,” said Giguere. “I’m the
guy who was always willing to go and get
that job done no matter what. We were
supposed to wear steel-toed boots and mine
weren’t – it shows you how I thought.”
When his accident happened, Giguere
had been married for just six days. He was
due to leave for his honeymoon that very
night. But instead of jetting off on vacation,
he was rushed onto a helicopter and flown
to the hospital.
The accident
Just after lunch that day, Giguere was in the
bottom of a trench with another laborer,
looking at a three-inch drainage line that
had just been damaged by the backhoe.
“It just so happened that the other
worker was closest to the truck, so he
climbed out to get a piece of pipe to make
the repair. I got down on my knee to clean
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