Toddler Expected To Recover After Falling Into Underground Oil Tank
LA PUENTE (CBSLA) -- A toddler who fell into an underground storage tank Sunday afternoon in La Puente is recovering after undergoing surgery.
Neighbors said the 2-year-old boy was alert and crying when paramedics rushed him to the hospital.
The scary incident happened Sunday afternoon during an Easter gathering when the child wandered off.
Panicked cries filled the neighborhood after people realized the boy had fallen down the hole.
Behind a fence, a pile of boards and bricks covered an opening that leads into a deep well on an empty lot.
According to the lot owner, the tank was filled with a mixture of oil and water and was covered with rotted plywood.
The child's rescue was captured on cellphone video.
"Get a towel! Get a towel," someone is heard shouting.
The video captures the exact moment when the toddler was pulled from the storage tank.
The sound of the boy crying is clearly audible as is the cries of his mother and onlookers.
The mom is also heard thanking a neighbor who jumped in to pull the little boy out.
Miguel Rocha grabbed a ladder and lowered it down the hole as his neighbor jumped in after the boy.
He called his neighbor a hero for acting without thought of his own safety.
"I seen it. He saved...the life of a baby," Rocha said.
Natalie Rizo said everyone in the neighborhood knows about the tank -- and as far as she knows it is always covered.
She was there when her neighbor and the toddler emerged, just as police and fire arrived at the scene.
In the cellphone video, the boy appears to be covered in what she described as slick and foul-smelling.
"He was wearing his clothes," Rizo said, "but he was like he looked like he was covered in something oily, like really glossy. The guy that jumped in he said that he had like his eyes were burning so he had sent to the hospital for that and the baby to get checked, too."
Neighbors say they have no idea how or why the little boy fell in -- and they say he's not from the neighborhood.