GOODYEAR, AZ — A worker has died after becoming trapped under dirt at a construction site in Goodyear on Monday.
Shortly after 1 p.m., emergency crews were called to a construction site near Citrus and Lower Buckeye roads.
Watch Goodyear police provide an update on the recovery operation in the player below:
When fire crews arrived on the scene, they located several workers utilizing their equipment in an attempt to dig out a co-worker who was in a six-foot hole.
Fire and police personnel joined in the effort to rescue the man, but as more dirt was being pulled out, more dirt collapsed inward, according to police.
Due to sensitive infrastructure, including gas lines, work to rescue the man slowed and, after some time, officials transitioned to recovery efforts.
Crews continued to work into the night to dig and recover the individual, who was recovered Tuesday morning and identified by Goodyear police as 44-year-old Ronald Andrew Baquera Jr.

Baquera’s family told ABC15 they are shocked.
Melissa Prado, mother of two of his children, described him as a great father. Tears filled her eyes as she remembered him.
"My daughter is really torn up. She spends almost every day with him. She's a little distraught, and my son's angry,” she said.
Prado said Baquera likes to work on cars and take his daughter to karate.
“His hobby was his children,” she said.
The state’s worker-safety agency, ADOSH, confirmed to ABC15 that they have opened a formal investigation into whether there were safety violations at the site. ADOSH declined to name the company for now. That safety report could take four to five months to complete, and the details will then be made public.
On Tuesday, a company working in the area, Rubicon Companies, issued the following statement, making it clear the worker was not from their company and is not a subcontractor.
They issued the following statement:

As for Prado, she said she has lots of questions about what happened that day.
“I’m sure it will come out,” she said. “But I don’t care to know right now.”
As for this moment, she’s helping her children deal with their grief.
“They’re not really coping too well,” she said.