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Rare Rescue In New Jersey Cemetary Now Basis For Training Responders

July 12, 2004

Fire crews are now training for a new type of rescue, one in which they assist in a cave-in emergency like they had experienced in the past with a gravedigger who was being buried under thousands of pounds of dirt two years ago

Two years ago, a North Bergen gravedigger narrowly escaped a nightmarish death after being buried under thousands of pounds of dirt, tombstones and concrete when the walls of the grave he was digging collapsed around him.

"When we arrived, he was completely buried except for part of his face," North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue Deputy Chief Frank Montagne said this week, recalling the June 7, 2002, accident at Machpelah Cemetery on Tonnelle Avenue near 58th Street. "At first we thought there was no way the guy could still be alive."

He was. But the 38-year-old gravedigger was still very much in danger.

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