Man Rescued From Storm Drain In Valley Stream
VALLEY STREAM, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- It was a messy rescue in Valley Stream, Long Island Wednesday, as emergency crews had to pull a man from a storm pipe.
The man was safe late Wednesday afternoon, but as CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff reported, he has some explaining to do about why he needed rescuing in the first place.
The incident was reported to 911 at around 10:30 a.m. when people on the street reported hearing a voice of someone in distress at Corona Avenue and Higbie Street, CBS2's Gusoff reported. Neighbors did not know whether it was a child or an adult, or the exact source of the voice.
Robert Thomashow was the first to hear the cries to for help, as he worked outside his Valley Stream home.
"I thought it was in the park, and then it kept on going, and I thought it was over here, and then down a little further," Thomashow said.
He could not figure out where the sound was coming from.
"Just moaning and yelling, yelling for help, so I called police," Thomashow said.
Soon, rescue crews descended on Thomashow's corner. The moans, responders quickly figured out that the voice was coming from a storm pipe buried five feet underground.
A man was inside the pipe and couldn't get out.
"If he had continued going forward, the pipe was getting smaller, so it would have made matters worse," said Malverne fire Chief James Lang. "Luckily, someone was able to hear him."
Malverne confined space rescue teams determined the man was inside a 24-inch pipe, 150 feet from the closes storm drain. They coaxed him into crawling backwards.
"Little by little, he backed himself out of the pipe, and then we harnessed him up and assisted him out of the hole," Lang said. "We kept constant contact with the victim. He basically crawled himself out, and then once he got into our hands, we packaged him up and brought him up to street level.
The rescue took 45 minutes. At last, the man emerged covered in muck, but alert, conscious and not seriously injured.
As to what he was doing in the storm drain, he offered first responders no explanation as firefighters hosed him down.
"He was in a storm drain, so we're not exactly sure of his entry point," Lang said.
Nassau County has a 60-mile network of open stream corridors -- pipes that move rainwater collected in catch basins. The man did not say as to where he entered the pipe and why.
Nassau County Public Works officials say this is the first such incident they are aware of. Police late Wednesday were investigating how the man entered the underground pipe network.
