BUILDING workers yesterday relived the horror of seeing their friend buried alive - and not being able to save him.

Ground work supervisor Neil Dunston, 41, of Davison Street, Lingdale, east Cleveland, was killed as a trench wall collapsed on top of him.

His friend, Carl Buck, was buried up to his chest, sustaining extensive injuries.

"It was the most frightening experience of my life,'' he said.

Witness David Wilson, another member of the work squad, said he was directing a "360" excavator, dropping bedding for a pipe into the trench where Mr Dunston and Mr Buck were working.

"The 360 was getting more bedding for the pipe and I was directing this. As the 360 turned away from the trench, I saw a gap start to appear in the ground, between the 360 and the side of the trench.

"Neil and Karl must have realised something was happening because they jumped over the pipe, to the side of the trench,'' said Mr Wilson. "There was no means of getting out the trench.''

He told an inquest jury in Middlesbrough that he saw a "wall of clay'' crash down, engulfing Mr Dunstan and burying Mr Buck up to his chest.

Mr Wilson said: "It just seemed to happen too fast for them to get out of the way.''

Norman Swales, another work colleague, said all he could see of Mr Dunstan, following the cave-in, was the top of his hard hat.

Members of the works squad, all employees of AW Cowan, of Middleton St George, County Durham, were carrying out site work on George Wimpey's Springfield housing estate of the Brotton and Skelton bypass, in east Cleveland, when the tragedy occurred in March last year.

The trench in which Mr Dunston was working was nearly three metres deep.

The workers said the trench was deeper than ones they were used to.

Mr Buck told the inquest: "If supports had been used in the trench, the whole incident could have been avoided.''

The men had been employed connecting up land drains to a main pipe.

Gary Petty, site manager for George Wimpey, denied he had been under pressure to get the work completed.

Blanch Debenham, solicitor for the Dunstan family, asked him: "Could you tell us whether you were under pressure to get worth completed, any specific time frame? Is it not correct people were waiting to get into houses?''

Ms Debenham asked Mr Petty if he considered the trench in which Mr Dunstan died to have been a "deep excavation''.

Mr Petty said: "It was no different to what we had done all around the site - and it was all done safely.''

The inquest continues.