SANDY — A man accidentally fell into a sinkhole Thursday morning after it opened up unexpectedly on his street.
According to city workers, a gravel truck driver first spotted the hole near 2400 E. Hunts End Dr. and placed garbage cans on either side of it to alert drivers and others.
The neighbor, who declined an on-camera interview, told KSL-TV he walked outside and saw his garbage can across the street. He went to retrieve it, believing he was seeing a shadow across the road, but he accidentally fell into the hole while trying to grab it.
The man said though he wound up in a hole that went up to his forehead, he was able to pull himself out, and he avoided serious injury.
Sandy City Public Utilities drainage supervisor Ted Ketten said medics checked out the man at the scene.
Ketten said the sinkhole was approximately 10 feet by 8 feet and was close to 6 feet deep, and it appeared it was caused by a deteriorating, 36-inch corrugated metal storm drain pipe.
“Over the years, hot soil deteriorates the pipe, and with the deteriorating, what happens is it starts to suck the soils around it in the pipe, and after that it pulls soil enough where it creates voids, and it eventually becomes a sinkhole,” Ketten said.
Ketten said the section of pipe had deteriorated to something more on the scale of “Swiss cheese,” and if the problem wasn’t discovered now, the sinkhole could have grown large enough to catch an unsuspecting car passing through the area.
“We stopped using that (corrugated metal pipe) decades ago,” Ketten said. “We’ve got a corrugated metal pipe replacement program, and we’re very proactive about these projects, but you can’t get them all because you can’t see in the ground.”
Ketten said workers planned to replace a larger section of pipe along the street to mitigate further potential issues.
“We’ll replace as much as needed to make our citizens safe,” Ketten said.
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