Updated: Worker dies in Wabash

WABASH, Ind. (WANE) - A Hartford City man died in Wabash Tuesday. Stephen Walls, 51, was stuck in a work hole full of water. Now Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration (IOSHA) is investigating what happened.

Just after 4:00 p.m. Tuesday Wabash police got a 911 call. According to the police log, the caller said "they are digging a hole at Carroll and West Streets and they hit a water main with a man down in the hole and he's drowning."

Police arrived to find a man fully submerged in at least six feet of water.

"Patrolman Dan Henderson attempted to get in the water," Maj. Steve Hicks from the Wabash County Sheriff's Department said. "He made it in and came back out because of how deep the hole was."

Hicks then got rope from one of his deputys.

"We tied the rope around me and I got in the water. Because I'm so tall, I could reach the bottom," Hicks said.

Hicks said he is 6 feet 10 inches tall and the water came up to his mid-chest.

"We were pulling so much we ripped his Carharts trying to get him out of the hole," Hicks said. "It was obvious he was stuck in the hold somehow. We didn't know for sure because the water was so dark with mud."

Indiana American Water came and shut off water to the water main and used pumps to get all the water out of the hole.

"That's when we realized he was stuck in there with a pipe and it wasn't possible to get him out as we were trying," Hicks said. "There was a main water pipe, as I was told, that collapsed onto his hand like a mousetrap and that held him inside the hole."

Hicks said firefighters used the jaws of life to pry the pips apart and free Walls.

"We were all soaking wet trying to get him out. We worked as hard as you can work to get him out, but with his hand trapped as it was ... it wasn't possible for us to remove him," Hicks said.

Firefighters took Walls to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The Wabash County coroner was scheduled to do an autopsy Wednesday afternoon. Those results haven't been released yet. 

Walls was an employee of Environmental Construction Inc., which is based in Yorktown.

NewsChannel 15 called the company Wednesday. The woman who answered the phone spoke through tears, saying everyone there was "very sad and Steve was like part of the family."

She said Walls had worked there for several years, but said the company isn't releasing any other information at this time.

Employees at the Crystal Flash gas station in Wabash also remembered Walls. They said he would come in often, sometimes several times a day, and that he was a funny, nice guy who they looked forward to seeing.

IOSHA officials are still investigating the accident.

"Just a plain accident, nothing criminal as far as I can tell," Hicks said.