It took just seconds for a trench on Dartmouth Street in Boston to fill with water after a pipe line burst on Friday.
Workers frantically called for help, saying two men were down in the trench and had become trapped as water filled the approximately 15-foot deep hole.
The agony of one man attempting to rescue his fellow construction worker was caught as the muddied water rushed down the road.
Firefighters arrived just moments after the line burst, but it was already too late to save the men.
Samantha Betti, who was in a nearby home when the pipe flooded the South End street, told the Boston Globe: 'It went from nothing to a flood.'
In the moments it took for first responders to arrive, the entire street was under brown, murky water.
It wasn't until late into Friday night that emergency personnel, working on their hands and knees, were able to remove the bodies from the trench.
As they did so local and federal authorities launched an investigation to determine why the line didn't hold.
Boston Police Commissioner William B. Evans told the Globe the pipe bursting was an accident.
'It looks like somehow a pipe must have broke, and unfortunately they weren't able to get themselves out of the hole,' Evans told the paper.
Atlantic Drain Service Co. was the company working on the private construction project at the time. A resident called the company to conduct underground work.
The company has a history of 'serious safety violations', the Globe reported.
One of the men who died had a large family and had recently adopted two of his grandchildren, a source said.
'There was not one dry eye here. I'm going to miss him badly,' the source told the paper.
The other man was from Rhode Island.
Two additional men who had been working down in the trench at the time of the explosion were able to escape.
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