New York is a very special place in which stories that may seem impossible can actually become very real.
A 47-year-old man suffered a dramatic fall that nearly cost him his life. Video shows the rescue of the man who fell 30 feet into a New York storm drain. NYPD special agents and FDNY rescuers had to join forces to get him out of there alive.
At a press conference, authorities said they responded to an emergency call about a man who had fallen into a drain located near the Whitestone Expressway in Queens. The site was difficult to find. “It’s a place you could never find,” said FDNY chief of special operations Patrick Ginty.
“There was an old water hole in the middle of nowhere with a creek cracking in the bottom,” added Ginty.
A firefighter used a ladder to climb down the hole and then used a metal rescue basket to position the victim and lift him out of the hole.
“He had been in that hole for a long time, so we wanted to move as fast as possible because he was in the water and we were concerned that he might have hypothermia,” said Krist Kabashi of FDNY.
Kenneth Logallo, an NYPD officer, explained that when they reached him, “he was conscious, and talking to us, he just expressed pain in the ankle region.” In addition to pain in his ankle, the man came out with a wound on his forehead, but rescuers hope that he will recover with no further medical problems.
Investigators found the man’s brother at the scene, who told authorities that his brother had a history of mental illness and had called him after falling down the drain. It is not clear how the man ended up there. He was taken to the nearest hospital to treat his head and ankle injuries.
