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Four workers at a Massachusetts fish farm were trapped in a filtration tank packed with fecal matter for nearly an hour on Friday. The workers were cleaning the 18-foot tank when the bracket securing a plastic filtration pad collapsed.

The workers were standing on the pad cleaning the tank when the bracket gave way according to Josh Goldman, the fish farm’s manager. Goldman said the workers and the pad simply fell to the bottom of the tank. One worker was completely submerged in the slurry of fish poo and sand, the other three were able to keep their heads above the dung.

Turners Falls Fire Captain David Dion said rescue workers retrieved the farmhands by cutting a hole in the side of the filtration tank and basically digging their way to the trapped workers.

The workers were freed from the tank, along with a fair bit of sludge. “It was very slimy and heavy,” said Dion. “Never seen anything like it in my life.”

The worker who was pulled under in the tank was airlifted to Bay State medical Center, but it isn’t thought he had life-threatening injuries, according to Dion. An ambulance took the other workers to a local hospital for assessment of their minor injuries.

“Everybody’s present and accounted for,” Goldman said. “A couple of the guys even came back to say hi.”

Australis Aquaculture fish farm raises barramundi, an alternative to the common grouper.