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Jerrod Elmendorf, 29, of Mount Vernon , died Saturday while he was digging in his brother’s backyard to help with a sewer problem.
He was excavating at his brother’s Evansville home Saturday afternoon.
It took the coroner hours to recover Elmendorf’s body from that hole. Police said the hole was not safe to be in.
Elmendorf was said to have been doing the work for his brother around 11 a.m. Saturday morning. His brother was seen with him at that time. He went missing just a few hours after starting the job.
According to police, he was alone at the house digging with a backhoe. A couple of hours after he started digging, his brother’s roommate came home.
“At about 12:45 p.m., his brother’s roommate went outside. He saw the backhoe still running, but he could not see the operator of the backhoe,” says Talsma.
The roommate then called 9-1-1. Around 3 p.m., Evansville firefighters found Elmendorf’s body 12 feet into the ground and at the bottom of the hole he had been digging.
Evansville firefighters worked to dig Elmendorf’s body out of the hole until about 7:10 p.m. The hole had to be widened and terraced before the body could be removed.
“So much dirt was covering him that he was in almost a standing up right position, and he was covered from head to toe.”
Authorities are questioning why he was in the hole. Evansville police are confused because Elmendorf has an excavating background. They claim he knew the dangers involved with digging in a project like this.
“We’re unsure at this time why he was in the hole. We don’t know if he was checking the depth of the hole or the progress of the work,” said Evansville Police Officer Brian Talsma.
Police said Elmendorf’s work experience should have taught him not to go in a hole like that. He has reportedly worked in excavation for several years.
“He’s experienced in this. He’s not somebody that would just jump down into a possibly unsecured hole. The question is what exactly happened?” Talsma said.
Evansville Police said they may never find out why Elmendorf went into the hole.
No one is sure at this time why the hole collapsed. Authorities have attributed high rainfall totals from recent rains and the sizeable pile of dirt beside the hole.
They expected to learn of the cause of death once the autopsy is done. Preliminary reports indicate the cause of death to be asphyxiation.
The Vanderburgh County coroner expected to complete the preliminary autopsy results by Sunday afternoon.
Lead investigator, Evansville police detective Jack Spencer, said Elmendorf’s death has officially been ruled an accident.
Elmendorf was said to be doing work for his brother due to a broken sewer line. He was doing some work to get started to fix the problem.