00:00Conscious the entire time, a paramedic tends to the injured teenager as frantic emergency
00:09workers desperately try to free him.
00:12One by one they move dirt using shovels, bare hands and sledgehammers.
00:18He was left in situ due to the complexity of the entrapment.
00:24The terrified 19-year-old was having breathing difficulties while his legs were hidden in
00:29the crush of concrete below.
00:31My understanding is that they were working in a shallow trench about five to six hundred
00:36millimetres deep and the retaining wall was located on the boundary about a metre from
00:41where they were working.
00:43Police say quick thinking action from workers moments after the accident to move some concrete
00:47blocks from his upper body were vital.
00:51In doing that they probably saved his life.
00:53It took a painstaking 75 minutes but inch by inch they finally freed him.
01:02He was very lucky.
01:03He did have some compression injuries to his legs but he was nice and stable.
01:06There was no other significant injuries.
01:08Police say the 45-year-old colleague who died at the scene was the teenager's relative.
01:13It's a tragic thing to have happened so close to Christmas.
01:18The wall collapse happened on a social housing building site.
01:21The company has declined to comment.
01:23Workplace Health and Safety is investigating the accident and another on this Gold Coast work
01:29site just yesterday where 15-year-old Beau Bradford suffered severe injuries and later died.
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