CHARLES CITY, IA- A North Iowa man who nearly died after getting trapped in a trench is getting stronger by the day.
Charles City Firefighter Dave Boehmer was buried while working on his new home about a month ago.
The spot along the Cedar River in Charles City will one day be the site of Dave and his wife Joyce’s retirement home.
He is doing most of the work himself.
"Beautiful place to build with a beautiful view of the river so I thought we'd build a new home there," Dave said.
He was working on connecting the homes sewer line, when one of the walls of the eight foot deep trench he was working in, suddenly collapsed.
"Being next to the river this is real sandy soil with black dirt on top and evidently the sand gave way and trapped me," he said.
Luckily for Dave, his son Ryan was close by cutting down some low hanging branches and had just decided to shut off his chainsaw at about the same time his dad became trapped.
"I heard Ryan, real faint, so I said Dad? And he said 'help' so I went over there and he was buried," said Ryan.
He found his father buried up to his neck, struggling to breathe, so he ran to get his cell phone and dialed 911 while trying to pull the mud away.
"I was actually on the phone still, with this hand and pulling the dirt and stuff away," he said.
Police arrived in a matter of minutes.
"The police showed up and started digging me out and I actually said I'm not hurt if you dig away this dirt I'll just roll out of here," Dave recalled.
But once he had enough space to move his lower body, he realized how hurt he was.
"Broken Femur, open book fracture of my pelvis and ruptured bladder," he said pointing to the various scars on his leg.
Members of his fire department, who he helped to train carefully worked to get him out of the trench. He says it felt surreal, like he was watching from outside the hole.
"Being the assistant fire chief I'm probably not the person doing the work in the trenches I'm overseeing it, so they need a victim, I've always volunteered," he said.
This time he was a real victim in real pain.
"When I was in the hospital they ask you your pain level zero to ten, and I told them I have a whole new ten because my ten used to be pretty low and now it's way up there," he said with a laugh.
He's thanking the police officers and his fellow firemen who came to his rescue, and grading their performance an "a."
Ryan can't believe the progress of his dad's recovery.
"Compared to what it could be and what we were told it would be, I'm real happy with how he's doing and how he walks and everything," he said.
Dave is thankful to be alive, and for the time he is now spending with his family.
"I don't plan on going into a trench again," he said.
Dave says people digging trenches should never dig alone and make sure the sides are tapered at a 45 degree angle and not vertical to help avoid a collapse.
Doctors say he could be back on the job as early as next November.
