Tunnel Collapse

The news story following this article is one of sadness and tragedy. A man died and his son and friend were lucky to escape alive. Climbing a mountain? Crossing a raging river? No. Digging a hole in the ground looking for old bottles.

It's not something a person who has dug for bottles hasn't seen or heard of before. I know of several near tragedies. A friend, a relative, just someone you've met, going that extra six inches down, when already seven feet in the ground. Suddenly the side falls in and just in the nick of time you pull away and are saved with a half a bucket of dirt on your head and a scare you won't forget.

This time, Gary Garcia didn't pull away in time or didn't see it coming. It consumed him like a raging river, a river of dirt that filled his eyes, mouth and nose, sucking the life out of him like a man being choked to death. With any luck the collapse happened quickly and deadly enough that it knocked him unconscious first. People that survive landslides talk about the moment it happens and what they feel at the time. Most say the immediacy of the incident and that sudden lack of an ability to breathe, along with the claustrophobic strangulation is unbearable.

Soil is an extremely heavy material, and may weigh more than 100 pounds per cubic foot. A cubic yard of soil (3 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft), which contains 27 cubic feet of material, may weigh more than 2,700 pounds. That is nearly one and a half tons (the equivalent weight of a car) in a space less than the size of the average office desk. Furthermore, wet soil, rocky soil or rock is usually heavier. Just fill up a five-gallon bucket of dirt and try to hold it straight-armed perpendicular to your body. Good luck.

I've known a number of people who either nearly died or were terribly injured. I myself got greedy and took that extra foot under a part of road I had no business being under. My God! The four of us were digging two feet under a county road. The bottles kept coming so we kept going. It's so hard for me to even fathom doing something so utterly ridiculous like that again, but we were kids and didn't know better.

Children, teens, adults and fellow bottle diggers, do everyone, including your sons and daughters, wives and family members a favor, dig carefully. It's so easy to get in trouble. Spend the extra half-hour carving the hole out so your next shovel full is a safe as the first one. Dave Garcia lost his dad this month, digging in a hole, looking for old bottles. From what we’ve heard he was a great guy and a family man. He died doing something he loved. However, even if Dave and his dad had found the Holy Grail, it wouldn't have been worth it.

Tunnel collapse traps,

kills beer bottle digger

Gary Garcia, 52, sought antique containers as hobby.

By Ben Baeder
Staff writer, Press-Telegram

WHITTIER — A 52-year-old Bellflower iron worker died when a tunnel collapsed and buried him as he hunted for antique bottles at an abandoned brewery site in Los Angeles.

Gary Garcia, his son, Dave Garcia of Long Beach, friend Bob Hirsch of Whittier and an unidentified man went Tuesday to the old Maier Brewing Co., an abandoned site under construction in Los Angeles, where they were looking for old bottles inside a tunnel.

The tunnel collapsed, trapping Hirsch and the older Garcia, fire officials said.

Hirsch was able to scramble and dig himself out from under the dirt. But Garcia was trapped from the shoulders down, according to a statement from the Los Angeles Fire Department.

"Tons of loamy earth encroached rapidly upon the man, who soon became pulse-less," according to the statement.

Firefighters tried to dig Garcia out, but the compression of the dirt killed him before rescuers could remove him. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

"We don't really know how it happened," Dawn Garcia, Dave Garcia's wife, said Wednesday.

"I'm imagining it was the way the tunnels were dug, that they weren't stable. We are really struggling with this, my husband is really struggling. This was a case of a dad who wanted to hang out with his son and learn about his hobby."

Dave Garcia and Hirsch belong to the Los Angeles Historical Bottle Club, a close-knit group of bottle diggers who excavate abandoned outhouses, dumps and factories, seeking rare containers.

Most collectors simply trade bottles, but a few tunnel through earth to find treasures, said John Swearingen, a jar collector from Thousand Oaks, who knew Dave Garcia and was shocked by his death.

"God," he said. "That's just awful."

Hirsch, the 65-year-old owner of Broadway Lock and Key in Whittier, has searched for bottles since the 1960s and has a collection that fills his back yard.

He and his partners once uncovered a container that appraised for $25,000, his sister, Lois Hirsch, said.

Brew 102 beer bottles from the Maier Brewery Co. can sell for about $100 each, she said.

About 30 antique bottles are displayed at Broadway Lock and Key.

"You can't leave here without talking to him about his bottles," said Jeff Smith, a street maintenance worker for Whittier, who was at Hirsch's shop Wednesday. "The way he tells these stories, it's so fascinating."

Lois Hirsch said family members often worry about Hirsch's hobby, but they said they cannot slow Hirsch down.

"We're constantly worrying," she said. "But we've learned that Bob is going to do what Bob is going to do."

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