Man rescued from septic pit
Published: December 15, 2005
Less than half an hour after dedicating a new rescue truck and thanking the company that donated it, fire personnel used it to hoist a badly injured man out of a 30-foot septic pit.
Jeff Valverde fell into the pit around 11 a.m. Wednesday at a construction site in the 4700 block of Garibaldi Avenue, east of Cherryland Avenue. Valverde had stopped by the site where Greg Lopez was building his home to take him to lunch, but as Valverde crossed the grounds, he fell through a board covering the pit, Lopez said.
Valverde, 38, was taken to San Joaquin General Hospital around noon to treat a possible broken arm and leg, and an injury to a recently broken left ankle. He also was bleeding heavily from his head and had trouble breathing when rescue workers pulled him out of the pit using a tripod device.
The septic pit was not in use at the time Valverde fell into it, Waterloo Morada Fire District Chief Jeff Angeli said. Construction workers were in the process of putting in a new sewer system, he said.
The Waterloo Morada Fire District and Stockton Fire Department collaborated on the rescue effort using a new truck donated by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The truck is designed and equipped for any type of rescue scenario, said Jim Silva, an engineer with the Stockton Fire Department.
Stockton Fire Chief Gary Gillis also thanked Central State Credit Union at Wednesday morning’s reception for donating a 1,400-square-foot office building for the department’s No. 2 station, at 110 W. Sonora St.
The donations saved the city roughly $100,000.
Angeli said was pleased at how the rescue went and noted that Valverde’s fall was his agency’s most intense rescue in at least 20 years.
The Stockton city rescue team did a fantastic job, and we appreciate it,” he said.
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