T Worker Rescued After Falling 35 Feet at Charles St.; Red Line Service Restored

A man working at the Charles Street T stop was rescued Wednesday morning after falling into a 35-foot shaft, according to fire department spokesman Steve MacDonald.

The man was working on the elevated tracks when he fell around 4:30 a.m. through a plywood board covering the shaft. After hours of a painstaking rescue, he was removed from the shaft shortly after 7 a.m. and taken to Mass General Hospital with two broken legs. As of 2:30 p.m., he was listed in serious condition, according to a MGH spokeswoman.

MBTA Spokesman Joe Pesaturo identified the worker as Edward Rowe, 46, from Haverhill. Rowe, an electrician at the T's power department, and has worked for the T since he was 18 and was at the Charles Street station Wednesday to turn off the electricity to the third rail so that workers on the Longfellow Bridge could work safely.

Rowe fell through a hole that was 2-feet-by-2-feet, making it possible for only one of two firefighters trained in this type of rescue to go down the shaft at a time, MacDonald said. The firefighters used a harness but had to work slowly because of the amount of pain the worker was in. 

"It took a lot of time to get the harness around him and lift him up," MacDonald said. About 40 firefighters, as well as EMS, T police and Boston Police, responded to the scene. Beacon Hill firefighters were among those on the scene.

Firefighters were on the scene within 4 minutes and were able to talk to Rowe. "So we knew, obviously, that he was alive," MacDonald said. But, because of the small opening at the top of the shaft, "it takes a while to lower someone down." Rowe was confined in a part of the shaft that measured 4-feet-by-4-feet. The fire department continuously monitored the air quality — another danger in a small shaft — as they kept Rowe calm and conscious and worked as fast as they could to get him out of the hole, MacDonald said. 

"A lot of the time when you train you wonder to yourself if it's worth it," MacDonald said of long days spent training in the summer heat or the frigid winter. "But then when you have an incident like this your training takes over."

MacDonald referred questions as to why plywood was covering the hole to the MBTA. "The GM (Richard Davey) has ordered replacement metal plates at the very few locations where wood exists," MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said over email this morning. 

Red Line service was experiencing 10-15 minute delays because of the incident, with service was suspended and buses were shuttling passengers between Kendall Square and Broadway, but has been fully restored.