Worker impaled by stone drill in Lakemoor

Updated: October 6, 2011 12:54PM

A worker who was impaled by a drill bit at a stone business in northwest suburban Lakemoor has been airlifted to a hospital Thursday morning.

Workers at Stonecrafters at 430 W. Wegner Rd. in Lakemoor heard the 34-year-old man’s screams for help and called 911 at 9:02 a.m., according to McHenry Township Fire Protection District Battalion Chief Joe Krueger.

“We responded to a person injured and caught in a piece of machinery,’’ he said.

They found the man stuck in a vertical milling machine. “He was impaled in his lower back with a drill bit,’ Krueger said.

A “head” moves over the machine, which takes slabs of concrete or large pieces of countertops and drills holes into them, Krueger said.

“We are not sure how or why he was in the area of the machine,’’ he said.

It took crews 12 minutes to extricate the man, who was then airlifted to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville.