St. Paul Police Rescue Man Who Fell From Parking Ramp

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- A Twin Cities man is lucky to be alive after falling 30 feet from the third floor of a parking ramp.

It happened near Fourth and Cedar streets in downtown St. Paul last Saturday, on one of the coldest nights of the year.

The victim called for help and part of the rescue was caught on a police body camera.

Faint calls for help could be heard throughout the parking ramp near Fourth and Cedar in downtown St. Paul.

"We pulled up and my partner had his window down and we actually heard somebody calling for help so we got out of our squad car on Fourth Street here and started walking the parking ramp," said Officer Cody Blanshan.

Officers Cody Blanshan and Josh Boone say the closer they got to the sound of calls for help the further away they seemed to be.

Their body cameras recorded them making a couple of laps through the ramp before they found him.

"I looked down in this little kind of crack in the wall and he was down in a small alley, it's probably three feet wide and maybe 25 to 30 feet down, a lot of trash down there and he was laying there. I just shined my light and it was the guy we were looking for," said Officer Josh Boone.

The man had been down in the hole for quite some time, he was bleeding and it was 14 degrees, the wind chill minus one.

"We found the gentleman down in this hole quite a ways down somewhere where we couldn't reach him, so we knew at that point had to put a ladder down there and immediately get two of our paramedics down there to start rendering aid," said Fire Cpt. Dennis Hall.

They used blankets to keep the man warm as paramedics worked quickly.

"We were doing everything with flash lights and head lamps," said Fire Cpt. Ken Adams.

Paramedics used an extendable ground ladder to set up a pulley system to get the man out.

"If things wouldn't have come together, if just one piece would have not happened the guy wouldn't have lived through the night," said Adams.

The man had a broken leg and was losing blood fast.

He is now recovering at home.