Fatal Sewer Line Accident in North Texas

One worker is dead and another is missing after they were apparently overcome by fumes while working on a sewer line in North Texas, emergency officials said Thursday.

Fairview fire Chief Dick Price said the dead man’s body was found Thursday morning. He said emergency personnel using oxygen and wearing protective gear are searching for the missing worker in the sewer in Fairview, a small town about 30 miles north of Dallas.

“Certainly we want to be optimistic,” Price said. But he acknowledged that the chances of finding the second man alive are “pretty slim.”

He said that they are looking in a “very methodical manner” and that the missing worker may have been swept downstream.

It is standard procedure for those working on sewer lines to monitor air quality before going in, but it wasn’t clear if they had conducted those checks, Price said. The victim they have located does not appear to have been wearing a respiratory device, he said.

“Our initial indications are that the oxygen level was probably insufficient to support their operation,” Price said.

Fairview spokesman John Godwin said a third worker called for help after one worker was apparently overcome by fumes and another went in to try to save him.

North Texas Municipal Water District spokeswoman Denise Hickey said the missing workers had been contracted from S.J. Louis Construction of Texas, Ltd.. A person answering the phone at the company’s Mansfield office said they had no comment. A message left with their corporate office in Rockville, Minn., was not immediately returned.

The names of the workers haven’t been released.