Con Fire Rescues Man Trapped Underground For Up To 2 Days

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA — A man stuck 15 feet underground in a stormwater drainage pipe for up to two days was rescued Sunday in a three-and-a-half-hour, 50-person rescue effort led by Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.

Passersby called 911 around 5:30 p.m. Sunday when they heard cries for help coming from underground in the 3100 block of Buchanan Road. Con Fire was notified at 5:37 p.m. that someone was possibly stuck in a drainage pipe, and firefighters arrived moments later and confirmed someone was trapped, Con Fire Spokesperson Steve Hill said.

Specially trained firefighter-technicians from Con Fire and the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District conducted the complex, high-risk and "confined space" rescue with support from the city of Antioch Public Works and Antioch Police Department, Hill said.

Uncertain of how to successfully reach the man through several potential access points, the incident commander ordered two simultaneous rescue attempts from opposite sides of the drainage pipe, Hill said.

"The first, which eventually proved successful, involved sending rescue firefighters into a nearby underground vault to make their way to and free the victim," Hill said. "At the same time, City of Antioch Public Works responders were directed to use a backhoe to dig down to the underground pipe on the opposite side of the victim’s location in case it became necessary to break it open to effect a rescue from that direction."

Four Con Fire firefighters, connected by umbilical cords for breathing air and underground communications, went down into the storm drain, found the victim and cleared a considerable amount of debris that was blocking his path.

A video shows the first firefighter making entry.

Shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, firefighters brought the victim — a man in his 30s — to the surface.

"As an all-risk fire agency, we train for rare rescues such as this," said Contra Costa County Fire Protection District Fire Chief Lewis Broschard. "Still, this was a complex and high-risk rescue effort that required extensive specialized resources and the skill and experience of many professionals from across the District to successfully complete."

Confined space rescues are both uncommon and high risk for many reasons, including the unknown location and condition of the victim and the potential risks to both victim and rescuers, according to Con Fire.

"Confined spaces such as these are not intended for humans to occupy, consequently, they may be an oxygen-deficient environment not capable of supporting human life," Hill said.

Con Fire firefighters routinely train to conduct restricted space and a wide variety of other rescue types at the department's Training Division on Treat Boulevard in Concord. In addition to academic training facilities, the Con Fire training campus has many sophisticated training props designed to allow firefighters to train in the most realistic environments possible for rescues such as this, Hill said.

Rescuers were not able to determine why the man went into the stormwater drainage system nor his exact entry point, which was believed to have been some distance from the rescue location, according to Hill.

Once brought to the surface, the victim was evaluated at the scene, determined to be uninjured, and transported to Sutter Delta for further medical evaluation, Hill said.