A St. Paul-area man was pronounced dead at the local hospital on Feb. 22 afternoon after what a relative called “a freak accident” following the man’s attempts to make repairs to a septic tank.
The relative said that initial reports about the accident, based on an RCMP news release, made it seem as if the man had fallen head first and was inside the septic tank, which was not the case. The man was lying in the ground and reaching in to make a repair, with his wife beside him at all times, said the relative. “His hands were down, his head was down – he was fighting to connect the two hoses.” Although the family member was not at the scene at this time, he assumed the man must have slipped forward and was left unable to push himself back up. “More than half his body was on the ground,” he said, clarifying that at no time was the man immersed in the tank, but that “his face was in the fumes.”
The wife tried desperately to remove him, but she was unsuccessful and called 911, police said. As she waited for emergency crews to arrive, with her husband still conscious and breathing, the family member arrived at the accident scene. They both tried to pull the man out but were unsuccessful. “I said ‘We need more help,’” he recalled, adding they called a neighbour, who came out to join the rescue attempts. Despite their joint efforts, the man’s arm went limp, which is when his family members assume he lost consciousness. Shortly after, they were able to pull him out and attempted resuscitation until emergency crews arrived.
The man was taken to the St. Paul hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The relative took issue with mistaken reports that the man had slipped and fallen head-first into the tank. He also said the repair was one he had to finish after the accident, the same sort of repair that any farmer or acreage owner would have done.
“It was a standard, simple procedure,” he said, noting that if the man was making the repairs in the summer, where a lack of traction due to snow and ice wasn’t an issue, the “freak accident” probably wouldn’t have occurred.
The family did not want the name of the man released in order to protect their privacy, as they grieved their loss. “Only time is going to heal this,” the family member said.
