By EMS1 Staff
HARRISON, Wis. — A boy was rescued from a storm sewer after a firefighter spotted his finger poking out of a manhole cover.
Fox News reported that the boy got swept under the water while playing with friends in a flooded drainage ditch after severe weather and did not resurface.
When responders arrived, a bystander was holding on to the boy, but he was swept into a culvert and the crew had to predict where the boy was flowing through the system.
While Deputy Fire Chief Wesley Pompa and road superintendent Bob Kesler mapped out the system, Pompa spotted the boy’s fingers poking through a manhole.
“He was hollering and talking to us and he was able to reach up for us,” Pompa said.
The boy was hanging onto a ladder, and firefighters pried the cover open to lift the boy to safety.
“I just thank God he was alive and he’d made it that long,” Pompa said. “It could have gone a million different ways but this one way it worked out for him.”