RAMSEY, Minn. - It had been an hour since Shane Hybben had been able to move his legs when he began to wonder whether he would be rescued from the sand that had fallen around him.

"I was scared," Hybben said Thursday. "But being scared doesn't do a hell of a lot of good, so I just kept calm and (the rescuers and I) just kept working through it."

After about two hours, with emergency and utility workers from six neighboring cities and a big assist from a sewer-sand-sucking machine, Hybben was pulled out unscathed, grateful and a little wiser.

Hybben, 32, had bent a water valve with an earth mover as he prepared to re-sod his yard. About 1:30 p.m. Thursday he had dug just deep enough to expose the valve he planned to repair when he was deluged with sand that buried him past his belly button.

Hybben's 7-year-old son, who was nearby, tossed him a phone to call 911. Rescuers at first used buckets to try to dig him out, but the surrounding sand kept collapsing tighter around him.

It felt like "having your blood pressure checked on both legs continuously for two hours," he said.

Finally, planks were pounded down around him, and once the sand was down to his knees, Hybben, strapped in a harness, was lifted out.

"I knew at that point I wasn't going to die," he said. "About an hour before that, I didn't know."

Hybben still plans to get his re-sodding project done this weekend, but he'll heed the advice of Police Chief Jim Way when it comes to the still-damaged water valve.

"Let the professionals handle it," Way told him.