BOSTON — A veteran electrician with the city’s transit system who was trying to make work conditions safer for others fell into a 30-foot deep shaft between the tracks this morning and was trapped for more than 2 hours with severe leg injuries.

Ed Rowe, 46, plunged through a thin piece of plywood covering a 2-foot-by-2-foot hole between the tracks at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s elevated Charles/Massachusetts General Hospital trolley station at about 4:30 a.m.

He was pulled from the hollow concrete support column by firefighters at about 7 a.m. and taken to the hospital right across the street with what were described as severe leg injuries.

Rowe was conscious but in “tremendous pain” when he was pulled free.

Two of the slimmest and smallest members of the department’s technical rescue team, descended down the narrow, damp, dark hole that widens to about 4-feet-by-4-feet at the bottom, their path impeded by pipes and a ladder.

They slipped a harness around Rowe’s legs and waist so he could be slowly hauled out.

All the time they tried to move him as little as possible to avoid aggravating his injuries.

“He just kept saying I want out of here,” one of his rescuers said.