Ashley Piccirilli was going through a normal day at a new construction job in the summer of 2021 when her will to live was tested like she never expected.
Piccirilli, then 32, was buried alive for about 30 minutes after a trench collapsed at her job site in Northampton, Mass.
Here, four years after surviving the harrowing incident — and after joining the Massachusetts National Guard, where she is a U.S. Army warrant officer — she and her doctor share her story of recovery.
It was a really hot August day and I was wearing pants because we’re working in construction, so I’m just sweating, but I was feeling excited because I was doing something that was just different. I had never done construction before and I was the only female at the job site, so I was working hard trying to prove myself the whole day.
The trench we were working in was 9 to 13 feet deep and about an arm’s width wide. So I was in between that 9 to 13 feet in the ground and I was laying sewer pipe from where the city sewer line was down to where we were building a house.
It was my seventh day on the job, my second day into the second week.
Right when I got hit, when the trench collapsed, everything went quiet — an eerie quiet.
I’ll never forget the sound because it hit me from the left to the right, the sound of the dirt just kinda like a whoosh over my body. I’ll never forget that sound.
My eyes were closed from the dirt and I couldn’t move an inch. The first thought I had was, “I don’t like this” and “how do I get out?”
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Courtesy Ashley Piccirilli
Ashley Piccirilli in the hospital
I wasn’t really in too much pain, I think my body was still in shock, but it was uncomfortable and I didn’t like it.
The best way to describe it is it felt like… you know when you see someone for the first time that you haven’t seen in a while and they give you that really big bear hug and they’re holding you really tight and uncomfortable? That’s what it felt like.
I could barely get any breaths in. I was taking these really small little breaths. But I never thought I would die, never, because I was like — they know where I am, they’re gonna come get me. I knew I was buried alive, I don’t know if it was stupidity, but that kept me calm and I didn’t panic. I didn’t think of family or anything because I didn’t think I would die.
A lot of people’s worst fear is to get buried alive and it could’ve been mine, but in the moment it was fight or flight. You have to fight to get out, and [my fight] was me staying calm. I have a military background. I attribute staying calm because of my training.
In my head I said, “I have to take these little breaths,” but I didn’t know at the time that my lung was collapsed, my ribs were broken — I couldn’t take a big breath anyway, but I took small ones and that’s what kept me alive. Because I was taking those small breaths, I never got that lack of air.
If I had panicked, I would not be here today. I 100% believe that.
Whenever something bad happens I’ve always been the person to say, “Okay … Let me see what I need to do, go through my check list of things to do to fix it.” And that’s what happened in that dirt.
I was awake for the whole thing. When they dug me, that’s when pain started coming in, that’s when I started to panic a little bit, saying, “Wait, please someone help me I can’t breathe.” Those were the only words I repeated into the ambulance. In the ambulance they gave me a chest tube because they knew my lungs were collapsed.
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Courtesy Ashley Piccirilli
Ashley Piccirilli in the hospital
I broke all the ribs on the left side and one on my right. It ended up being 10 or 11 ribs. Then I broke my clavicle. My spleen was lacerated and had to be removed. I think it was 15-20% of my liver needed to be removed.
My vena cava had a huge hole in it — that’s the major artery back to the heart, and that’s where a lot of the internal bleeding was coming from. They had to reconstruct my sternum, reconstruct my diaphragm.
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I ended up having two surgeries when I first got to the hospital. They wheeled me to a spot and there was a woman, who I later found out was Dr. Kristina Kramer, the lead surgeon, she leaned over and she said, “We’re gonna get you through this, you’re in good hands.”
I just nodded my head and after that, I passed out.
I was in the hospital for about 30 days, and my recovery was close to a year.
Courtesy Ashley Piccirilli
Ashley Piccirilli in the hospital
Baystate Health
Ashley Piccirilli standing for the first time in the hospital
‘She Pushed Herself Every Day,’ Doctor Says
Dr. Kramer, a surgeon at Baystate Health, played a key role in Piccirill’s recovery but says Piccirill’s remarkable spirit deserves much of the credit as well.
In an interview, Kramer detailed the quick work the medical team took to save her life and the harrowing moments along the way.
“When I met Ashley in the trauma bay, her blood pressure was very low and a quick ultrasound of her abdomen showed us that she was bleeding internally. We started giving her blood as we prepared her for surgery. We brought her straight from the trauma room to the operating room,” Kramer says.
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“When we entered her abdomen, it was full of blood,” the doctor continues.
Soon, she learned about the injury to Piccirill’s vena cava vein, which could have “kill[ed] her very quickly,” Kramer says.
“Even though we were moving fast, Ashley’s heart stopped as we moved to save her life. When it did, I opened her left chest to be able to reach her heart and her aorta. This incision also helped us see her injury and, thankfully, I was able to sew the hole closed,” Kramer says.
Baystate Health
Dr. Kristina Kramer (left) with Ashley Piccirilli (center)
Courtesy Ashley Piccirilli
Ashley Piccirilli is an Army pilot
Piccirill required another surgery the following day “to examine her abdomen and chest again, and to close them both,” the doctor says.
That procedure took several hours, “reconstructing her chest and closing her abdomen. Nearly all her ribs on her left side had been crushed, which made this job more difficult. This was just the beginning of her monthlong stay in the hospital.”
But through it all, Piccirill held onto her spirit.
“Part of the reason Ashley recovered so well was because of her positive outlook on life,” Kramer says. “When she left the [intensive care unit], she needed a lot of help even to stand. She pushed herself every day, and as she started to regain her strength she kept challenging herself to get stronger.”
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