Can you imagine being in trouble, yet no one could hear you calling for help?
Jamie Lindsay was walking to the grocery store in Buchanan Road, Antioch, California, when he heard something unusual.
He heard someone crying for help.
Of course, Lindsay was confused because the sound came from undeveloped land behind the local grocery outlet.
He looked around, and there was no one.
Then he heard the screams again. This time, he stopped and listened carefully. There was no person, but someone was crying for help.
“The noise started getting louder and louder. I heard him screaming for help and he asked me to help him. I ended up calling police,” Lindsay told KTVU FOX.
As he came closer, he discovered that the sound came from a storm drain.
When the firefighters arrived on the scene, they investigated and opened a utility hole. Upon inspection, they confirmed that someone was trapped at about 15 feet underground.
“We did hear some cries for help. We then upgraded to a full confined space heavy rescue response,” Battalion Chief Bob Atlas said.
The Contra Costa County Fire Protection District or CCCFPD rescuers started planning how they would proceed with the rescue. According to Atlas and the team, these types of rescues need thorough planning.
These types of cases are called high-risk and rare and involve rescuers who had special training.
It wasn’t easy setting up the rescue. The man who was trapped had already been there for around two days.
The rescue team decided it was best to set up two rescue points.
On the first rescue point, a backhoe was placed and was ready to dig in any event they had to open the whole pipe.
The second rescue point had four brave firefighters who entered the hole. Upon closer inspection, they saw that the pipe was already clogged with debris.
It was one of the reasons why the man was trapped inside.
He could no longer crawl forward or go back at this point. The pipe was filled with trash, branches, and plastic.
“It turns out he had crawled some fairly long distance through a very small storm water drain pipe, had gotten to a point where that pipe was blocked with debris, couldn’t go forward but also couldn’t go back because he was pretty much stuck,” said Steve Hill, one of the CCCFPD members.
Firefighters spent three and a half hours before they could rescue the man, including the one hour they spent clearing the debris.
At last, after the tireless efforts of the rescuers, they were able to reach the man.
“He was in a pipe that some people describe to me as being the diameter of a large pizza,” Hill added.
They successfully rescued the unidentified man around 9 in the evening.
According to the initial checkup, though hungry and dehydrated, the man didn’t have any other injury. They took the man to the hospital for further tests and investigation.
Until today, there’s no clue why someone would crawl inside a tight and unsafe place like this.
“Those places are not created for human occupation. They are not safe,” Hill reminded everyone.
Watch the breathtaking rescue below and stay safe!
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