A man trapped in a hole on a cliffside in San Diego was freed Friday following a 20-hour rescue effort. He had been stuck in the hole for days before passersby heard his calls for help.
The San Diego Fire Department was made aware of the unnamed trapped man at around 4 p.m. local time on Thursday after passersby heard him calling for help. They attempted to help the man get free before alerting SDFD lifeguards.
“He was about 10-15 feet deep into the ground … He wasn’t able to move one of his arms because it was covered in dirt and was in a stuck position for two days. His first words were help me, I’m scared I’m hungry. I’ve been here for three days,” Justin Florentino Pacheco, who found the man along with his friends, told KFMB-TV.
The man was pinned from the waist down by heavy rocks inside a hole with a 12 to 18-inch opening about 15 to 20 feet below the entry point for the cliffs, the San Diego Fire Department said in a post on Facebook.
Efforts to rescue the man Thursday were unsuccessful, so the responders at the scene gave the man heat packs and fluids with electrolytes before covering the hole. Rescuers stayed at the scene overnight to ensure the hole was not flooded by rain and rising tides, fire officials said.
On Friday, a cave rescue team with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department arrived to help break up the larger rocks around the hole.
“Once we relieved the pressure off his right leg, that was the most smile I saw in his face because he could feel that we were finally getting him out this morning,” SDFD Deputy Chief Dan Eddy told KSWB-TV.
Rescue efforts resumed in the hopes of beating the high tide, and the man, who was awake, was freed and taken to the hospital just before 11 a.m., fire officials said. The man was suffering from major trauma injuries, Deputy Chief Eddy said according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
SDFD also posted a video of the rescue on YouTube.
The remote location and the small size of the hole complicated the rescue.
“We’re down on the cliffside, we’re scrambling over the rocks, underneath the rocks … We’re worried about the rocks collapsing on our other rescuers. There’s just enough room for them to fit head first in the tunnel while they’re secure with the ropes and harnesses,” Chief Newell told KFMB-TV.
Authorities did not say how the man first became trapped in the hole.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.