MBTA Worker In Fair Condition After 30-Foot Fall In Shaft
BOSTON (CBS/AP) - A veteran MBTA worker was saved by Boston firefighters in a dramatic early morning rescue after he fell 30 feet inside a shaft.
46-year-old Edward Rowe of Haverhill, an employee of the agency's power department, was listed in fair condition Wednesday night at Massachusetts General Hospital.
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Rowe was working on an elevated trolley track near the Charles Street/Massachusetts General Hospital station at about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday when he fell through a plywood cover between the tracks and down a hollowed out concrete support column.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports
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The fire department was called in and it took some of their smallest firefighters to save him. The entrance to the shaft is just three-feet by three-feet.
Rowe was pulled out just before 7 a.m., two-and-a-half hours after he fell.
"The guy was in some pain down there, he wanted out of there," rescuer Gary Dardia told reporters.
"We just tried our best to get him out in a timely fashion without causing him any more pain."
Rowe has been with the MBTA for 28 years.
MBTA General Manager Richard Davey has ordered all plywood covers be replaced with metal to prevent another accident.
Because of the accident, the T was busing between the Kendall Square and the Broadway stops on the Red Line until 8:30 a.m.
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