Emergency workers from five fire departments and two ambulance districts worked methodically to save Efrain Alberto Delvalle after shifting cement dust trapped him inside the silo at 2:50 p.m. Saturday.
Shortly after 4 a.m. today, Delvalle was freed and sent by ambulance to hospital, though he was not seriously injured.
Delvalle and two other men were working for a contractor to clean the inside of the 30-metre silo at Federal White Cement about 15 kilometres west of Woodstock, Ont., when the cement dust shifted, said Ontario Provincial Police.
The two workers got out of the silo, but Delvalle was trapped up to his waist about 18 metres down.
By the time Oxford paramedics and firefighters arrived, the dust was up to his neck.
``It moves easy. It runs like water,'' Embro fire Chief Don Shewan said.
Rescuers didn't try to pull Delvalle out, fearing his five-point safety harness, or the wire holding it, would break.
They spent hours digging and vacuuming the dust around his body until they were able to safely free him.
