International Operating Engineer - Summer 2018

Safety & Health
Trapped!
Operator survives 2.5 hours submerged in dozer cab
“The radio in the dozer wasn’t working so I played songs
on my phone, which I had picked up. I played Frank Sinatra,
‘My Way,’ because I thought I’d like to go out that way. I
watched videos of my kids, of my daughter, Kloe, singing. I
cried.
THINKING HE COULD swim to shore if his arms were
free, Local 139 member Robbie Gunderson hurriedly
removed his safety vest, then his sweatshirt, then a t-shirt,
and readied himself to jump from the sinking Caterpillar D6
dozer.
“I was getting ready to bail. I was thinking I had a little bit
of time,” he said later of his near-death experience shortly
before 8 a.m. May 21.
Fortunately, Gunderson’s mind rejected the thought and
recalled a scene from his MSHA training. His new thought
was, “… them corny videos.” An equipment Operator in
one of the videos Gunderson once had watched at his local
union’s training center had decided to flee a dozer cab in an
emergency situation. The man survived, however, his legs
were drawn under the machine and crushed, leading to a
double amputation.
The takeaway from the videos offered Gunderson a path
to survival in the opposite direction of jumping. The message
was, “Stay in the cab, stay alive.”
Gunderson stuck with his training. He stayed put. He
would remain seated in the cab for the next 2.5 hours while
the 25-ton dozer settled under 12-15 feet of sand, water, silt
and clay in a detention pond at the Hi-Crush Partners LP
sand mine near Whitehall, Wisconsin. That brownish mixture
flowed quickly into the bottom of the cab as soon as the dozer
entered the pond. For reasons unknown, the mix stopped
rising at a level slightly below Gunderson’s knees. Incredibly,
the cab stayed air-tight even though its windshield “spidered”
as soon as the dozer submerged.
Because his cell phone had fallen from its cup-holder
perch in the cab, the Operator reached for a two-way Midland
radio on board and called fellow Local 139er Scott Anderson,
who was on shore.
Foreman Todd Schmidt, also a 139er, remembers an
exchange of words as Anderson quickly reported news of the
accident to Schmidt. “Robbie said: ‘Help! Help! I’m going in
the pond,’” Schmidt said.
“And Scottie told him, ‘Just relax. Save your air. We’ll get
to you.’ ”
processing site, according to media reports.
At about 7:49 a.m., Gunderson was dozing sand toward
the pond when his machine slid forward and would not stop
sliding. He shifted the dozer into reverse, but had no success
in halting the slide. “I thought I was gonna die,” he said.
Gunderson is a personable soul; a jokester. He has
retained a quirky sense of humor despite his ordeal.
He said he does not consider himself a religious person,
yet he said he prayed that the water would stop coming in
and it did.
“I started talking to my grandpas (Gene Sosalla and Eric
Gunderson) who are gone, and to my first wife, Amanda, who
died 13 years ago of cancer. I told them I wanted to join them,
but not this day.
“I told Scottie, ‘Just tell my kids I love them.’ It was best
that I was talking to Scottie. With other guys I would have
been joking around, burning up oxygen.”
To further pass the time, Gunderson scrawled “family”
on the dozer dashboard. Outside the cab, bubbles rose in a
watery mixture Gunderson likened to “chocolate milk.”
Above this murky and claustrophobic world, an army of
rescuers assembled. Divers, firefighters, emergency medical
technicians, and law enforcement officers tried to organize a
rescue plan. A Flight-for-Life helicopter arrived.
A number of those in this gathering knew Gunderson
and the Gunderson family, from nearby Independence. They
were determined to save one of their own, Schmidt said.
As minutes elapsed into hours, a decision was made to
breach a dike separating the pond from a tributary of the
Trempealeau River, and to drain the enclosure, Hi-Crush
Chief Operating Officer Scott J. Preston told the media.
Schmidt and Chad Gerke, another 139er and an owner of
Gerke Excavating, manned Cat model 349 and 390 excavators
to open the dike, Schmidt said. Ultimately, about 10 million
gallons were released, according to published reports.
Meanwhile, news of the accident arrived at Evergreen
Elementary School in Holmen, where Gunderson’s wife,
Lindsay Prokop, teaches second grade. She drove to the mine.
A relative, Randy Niedercorn, who is a former Trempealeau
County sheriff, cautioned that she likely would get there and
be asked to identify her husband’s body.
Anderson and Gunderson had a history of butting heads,
Gunderson said. On this day, the pair set their past differences
aside. “Scottie stayed on the radio, talking to Robbie the
whole two and half hours,” Schmidt said. “At times Scottie
said, ‘Save your air. Just key the mic so we know you’re with
us.’ ”
Gunderson’s assignment had been to push 15 piles
of “reject” sand into the pond. He and other Operating
Engineers there work for Gerke Excavating Inc.
The pond spans an area approximately 100 feet by 600
feet, Schmidt said. It’s part of a 1,447-acre sand mine and
“I told God I’d be a better dad, a better son, a better
husband. But I wasn’t gonna stop drinkin’ …
[left] The dozer in which Local 139 member Robbie Gunderson
was trapped is revealed after a detention pond into which the
machine slid was drained. This photo shows the dozer and a boat
used in the rescue.
[above] Local 139 member Robbie Gunderson.
[article & photos] Dave Backmann, Local 139
At the clay pond, Schmidt finally had reason for hope. He
spotted the dozer’s GPS antenna sticking out of the muddy
water. “I yelled to the guys in a boat,” he said. “They weren’t
really close to Robbie. They were about 30 yards from where
they thought he was.”
The rescuers smashed a window in the cab to free
Gunderson, hauled him aboard a 14-foot, flat-bottom boat,
then ferried him to shore. Gunderson was shaking, a sign that
hypothermia was setting in. His right thumb was bleeding,
cut on the broken window glass.
...Continued page 16
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INTERNATIONAL OPERATING ENGINEER
SUMMER 2018 15