Family members remember construction worker killed after being buried alive in Cobb County trench

Tom Jones
·3 min read

Family and witnesses told Channel 2 Action News about the bizarre incident where a man was killed after he became buried in a trench while working at a home.

The family of 43-year-old Edwin Barrayo said he was a husband with three kids who worked every day to provide for them.

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Barrayo’s family said they are torn up over his death.

“My heart is broken right now. I have no words,” his brother, Alvaro Martinez, told Channel 2′s Tom Jones.

Martinez came to the scene to try to make some sense of an awful incident that killed his brother. “I don’t even have words for it. I don’t know how that happened,” he said.

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On Friday afternoon, around 4 p.m., Barrayo and his crew worked in a trench at a duplex on Wells Drive in Smyrna.

“They had a leak in the basement,” said Dan Smith, the contractor who hired Barrayo and his crew to handle the issue.

Neighbor Dia Mcdonald watched the workers moving all the dirt. She says the work made her nervous. “I’m like, I don’t understand why they’re working today. It is raining,” she pointed out.

The Smyrna Fire Department said Barrayo somehow became fully buried in the trench. It said it called in additional resources but determined Barrayo had died. So it became a recovery mission.

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Barrayo’s sister-in-law wonders how did this happen. “My brother-in-law was a good man. He didn’t deserve the way that he passed. He didn’t,” Carolina Martinez said.

Jones listened to contractor Smith who detailed all that went wrong with trying to rescue Barrayo.

“You don’t like the way this was handled? Jones asked.

“Definitely not,” Smith replied. He says the workers were digging Barrayo out and were making progress until firefighters told them to stop.

“They were made to get out of the hole, and they had two minutes left to get him out,” Smith said.

He said firefighters said it was too dangerous. Smith believes more could have been done to save a life.

Family members said they live out of the country, and he hasn’t been able to see them in years and that Barrayo worked tirelessly to provide for them.

Martinez says her brother-in-law was a good man. “All he did was work. He worked from Monday thru Sunday.”

A spokesman for the fire department says the area was just too dangerous, so it had no choice but to order Barrayo’s co-workers to get out for their safety.

The contractor who hired the crew said he gave the workers six days to complete the project, which may have contributed to the urgency of getting this project done even though it was raining.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has been contacted.

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