The Paulding County firemen who were attempting to rescue a man earlier this week received assistance from an unexpected department.
Paulding County Fire and Rescue was called to Wayne Davis Concrete on Hailey Path in Dallas on Tuesday to assist a man who had fallen twenty feet into a hopper that was loaded with rocks and sand. The victim received assistance from the firefighters.
According to Lieutenant Steven Mapes of the Paulding Fire Department, “There was so much additional material above him that we were concerned about causing a secondary collapse, so we could not put anybody else in the hopper.” “He would have been buried if there had been tons of gravel above him,” the speaker said.
The firefighters were had to think quickly and devise a strategy that would prevent any further damage from occurring. As a result, they contacted Brandon Rakestraw, who had previously served as a firefighter from Dallas Public Works.
In a hurry, Rakestraw’s team arrived at the scene with their vacuum truck and immediately began working.
This truck is typically intended to collect rubbish, but in this particular instance, it was put to use to collect the debris that was surrounding the individual who was in the hopper.
It is possible to store 2,000 gallons of debris in this tank. We were left with approximately ten inches of space in the very top of the chamber. In other words, there was almost 2,000 gallons of debris,” Rakestraw explained.
Following the completion of the clearing of sufficient space, firefighters descended into the hole.
“We repelled some of our rescuers from Paulding Fire and Cobb Fire down into the gravel and took the large suction tube, which is kind of like a shop vac, and vacuumed all of this gravel, tons and tons of gravel, away from the patient until we could rescue him and get him above ground,” said Lieutenant Mapes. “We saved the patient’s life.”
According to Lieutenant Mapes, once the individual was removed from the situation, he was transported to the hospital via helicopter. In addition to being able to speak, he was breathing.
“He had a perfect life. The news that he is fine fills us with joy. “We have been saying it for the past couple of days, but this was truly a Christmas miracle,” Lieutenant Mapes remarked.
According to Lt. Mapes, the individual was still recuperating in the hospital at the time of the most recent inspection.
The request for comment that we made to Wayne Davis Concrete has not been responded to.
