A Belco employee is intensive care with a broken collarbone and a collapsed lung after falling from a bucket truck in a freak accident yesterday near St. Brendan?s Hospital.

Workers told that the victim, 35, had stopped breathing after plunging 20 feet, narrowly missing three vehicles and a wall.

Building contractor Cesar Oliveira saw the whole thing happen as Belco workers tried to uproot a telephone pole to make room for a housing project off Devon Springs Road.

?They tried my rope which snapped twice,? he said. ?Then they tried with their pulley system. They were pulling upwards. It had no movement but they tried to force it and the rope snapped.

?There was a spring back reaction and that sprung him out of the box. The pole did not move. It was like an elastic band.

?He went down with his feet higher than his head and landed on his backside. He missed everything by about half an inch ? the blue truck, the other truck, the car, the wall.?

Mr. Oliviera said workers rushed to the man?s aide and helped save his life.

?Two people gave him mouth to mouth, pumping his chest,? he said. ?For 15 seconds, I guess he had stopped breathing.

?His pulse had slowed right down and his heart had stopped. He was unconscious straight from the start, they got him going again and he had movement by the time he left.

?He was still unconscious about ten minutes into it when he started moving himself. I had called 911 already and we waited for the ambulance.

?We kept him cool with clean water, didn?t move him. We covered him with a blanket and kept talking to him to keep him alive.

?We said ?Stay with us, you are going to be all right?, anything anybody could think of, that literally made him move and come back.

?He didn?t say anything but he gave us a nod to let us know that he had heard us. He nodded about two or three times.

?I think he had injuries on the side of his face, which he was lying on, which I never saw but he had a definite gash on the side of his nose. He landed on his backside.?

Belco said last night the man was stable condition in intensive care and had suffered multiple abrasions along with the broken collar bone and collapsed lung.

The cause of the accident is under investigation by both Belco and Government?s Health and Safety Office.

Mr. Oliveira said the wires had already been removed as Belco then tried to shift the pole, which was going to be relocated.

?They assured me they had done it many times and it was OK ? because I was more afraid than they were.

?I had tried to lift it out with my machines. I only budged it up out of the ground by six inches. They then tried, they said ?Trust us?. It happened so quick.?