A former Conservative mayor survived for five days without food or water after he became trapped under a pipe behind a football club pavilion.
Chris Cummins, 75, was returning to his home in Wanstead, East London, on the last day of February when he unwittingly found himself at the centre of a dramatic fight for survival.
As he took a detour on his way to Barkingside Tube station, Mr Cummins spotted a possible shortcut at the back of non-league Redbridge FC’s Oakside Stadium.
But while attempting to squeeze through a wire fence behind the club’s pavilion, the 75-year-old became wedged underneath a pipe he had tried to crawl under to leave him helplessly stranded.
He spent the next five days trapped in the narrow gap without any food or water with temperatures at some points dipping below zero.
Fortunately, he managed to avoid tragedy when Redbridge FC chairman Richard Eaton and three colleagues heard his cries for help. The 75-year-old was immediately given some water with a straw as firefighters and paramedics raced to free him.
The former Conservative councillor, whose colleagues had described him as a “bit of a terrier” when he served as Redbridge mayor in 2011, spent two months recuperating at hospital before further recovery at a care home following his ordeal.
Now, after undergoing an amputation for all the toes on his left foot following a previously undiagnosed issue, Mr Cummins is due to return home this week.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, which first reported Mr Cummins’ tale of suburban survival, Mr Cummins said all he could do was hope and pray he would be found behind the football club.
“While I was lying down, on my front but slightly to one side, all I could do was shout for help – ‘Help, I’m stuck, and I’ve lost my mobile’ – and pray. Sometimes it was the Lord’s Prayer. Mostly it was, ‘Please God, help me get out of here’. I might have put my hands together, I don’t know.
“I fell asleep sometimes, using my right arm as a pillow, but could follow the time by activity at the station – the trains stopping at night and restarting in the morning, and the announcements, hundreds of times.
“I couldn’t hear any human voices - when Ricky finally arrived, I said, ‘Thank God you’ve come’.”
Mr Eaton recalled how Mr Cummins asked if he was an angel as he saw the “overwhelming relief” on his face when he discovered the local politician “face down in the dirt”.
“Chris was heard calling out on Thursday evening during a night training session by one individual who stopped and shouted out but could not hear any response - I will never forget the moment we found him and the pure joy in his voice,” he told the Mail.
The chairman said he was told by emergency services it was unlikely Mr Cummins would have survived a sixth night in his predicament. To help with his rehabilitation at home, Mr Eaton has launched an online appeal on the GoFundMe website.