PERU – What began as a three-day home improvement project among friends Monday afternoon turned tragic when one of them was crushed by a concrete slab.

James Wing, 42, of Rumford died while being transported by Med-Care Ambulance to Rumford Hospital, said investigating Trooper Abbe Chabot.

“It was an unfortunate fluke accident that nobody could have foreseen,” Chabot said late Monday night. “It was just a bunch of friends helping their buddy at his house on a three-day project.”

She said Wing and three other men were helping homeowner Arthur White dig a drainage ditch around the foundation of the home to repair water leaks in the basement at 234 Gammon Road.

The men had dug out around the perimeter of a large concrete footer slab for the fireplace that was supposed to have been secured to the home’s foundation when it was built 30 years ago, Chabot said.

But the men were unaware that the 3-foot-thick slab, which measured 8-feet-by-4-feet, was only held in place by the ground.

“When they were digging around the foundation’s perimeter for drainage, this guy was down there in an 8-foot-deep pit on one side of the house. They had no idea that the slab wasn’t attached to the foundation,” Chabot said.

At about 4:30 p.m., loosened ground around the slab gave way, collapsing it onto Wing.

“It came down right on top of the guy’s chest area to his hip and essentially crushed him,” she said.

An excavator was quickly used to raise the block off the man enough so that Wing, a Dixfield firefighter and Med-Care Ambulance driver, could be pulled out.

But, by then, he had already sustained a life-ending injury, said Med-Care Director Dean Milligan.

Peru firefighters, Med-Care and Chabot, who was in Roxbury at the time of the accident, rushed to the scene upon being alerted by a 911 call.

“One of our own employees, Jeff Bolduc, who is also a Peru firefighter, was first on the scene,” Milligan said. “Jeff said Jim was conscious and trying to speak. On the way down (from their Mexico base), we received updates and were told that it was a critical situation and to hurry.”

Milligan said that when he arrived, it didn’t register right away in his mind that he had worked with the critically injured man at Med-Care for the past six months.

“When I got there, I didn’t realize it was Jim because he was covered with dirt. He was barely conscious. We had five people working on him, then there was one person driving the ambulance and four people in the back with him. We treat everybody the same but it’s more difficult when it’s one of your own,” Milligan said.

In an attempt to get Wing to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, they summoned LifeFlight helicopter, “but they were not available,” Milligan said.

But due to the nature of Wing’s injuries, Milligan didn’t believe he would have survived even if a medical helicopter had been available.

“It was a substantial enough trauma, a life-ending injury,” he added.

The loss of the footing left the chimney unstable, according to Chabot.

“The chimney is a ticking time bomb. It had shifted and was groaning when we were there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went home and found the chimney collapsed,” Chabot said.

“The chimney had visibly removed itself from the house. We were reluctant to leave them there so the Arthur White family agreed to leave the residence,” she added.

Second Assistant Chief of Scott Bennett of the Dixfield Fire Co. said Dixfield firefighters were shocked to learn of Wing’s death. “It was a very unfortunate tragedy,” said Bennett. “Jim was always a willing worker, a hard worker and he would do what you wanted him to do. He served the department pretty well.”

Wing joined the department in February 1999 and became certified to do interior attacks. He also served as vice president and president of the Dixfield Firemen’s Relief Association. Wing had served as a firefighter with the Andover department since August of 2000.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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