https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...gSource=articleShare

Not sure if link comes up or not.....I’m technologically retarded

This was a call I did Sunday and has gotten a lot of media attention for some reason. I didn’t think much about it, yes, it was a little bizarre but we encounter bizarre all the time. I did a zoom interview today with dailynews I think it was?? I hate the media and reporters, but am having a hard time avoiding it this time.
The story is basically a guy that fell through a floor in a home....straight into an old well under the house....kinda scary if you ask me...but I was the dude working and executed his rescue....the guys working for me that day were awesome and pros....it was a smooth operation with a good outcome. Anyway.....never been on national media and had to brag a little...even though I’m used to flying under the radar as my baseline normally.

Oh....and the producer interviewing me today on zoom was pretty cool...and not hard to look at either!

Nice work, Cap'n!

Well done.

"It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again"

Good job

Well done sir. With what is being reported in the news media now it is refreshing to see something like this. All members of the rescue team deserve the "ataboy".............. drill sgt.

The last quote from the article is an incredible testament to your leadership and training. That’s something that I would frame and look back on through my career.

quote:

Originally posted by cgode:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...gSource=articleShare

I have to set up an account w/the NYT to read this? NO THANKS!

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:

quote:

Originally posted by cgode:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...gSource=articleShare

I have to set up an account w/the NYT to read this? NO THANKS!

I didn’t have to.

Just click “continue”.

Sounds like he's got a good start to a boonker, too bad The Man knows about it now.

Another good reason to always have your cell phone on you.

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up.

Was his name Timmy? Did Lassie call 911?

OMG. That’s going to bring back a recurrent nightmare from my childhood, ever since I read a story about it in Boy’s Life. It’s deep, and cold, and dark, and you are drowning, and no one can hear you scream.

Apple gives me free access:

Article from the NYT:

Man Falls Through the Floor and Discovers a Well Beneath a Connecticut House
Chris Town, 67, was helping a friend move into a house when the floor gave way beneath him. Firefighters rescued him from a 19th-century fieldstone well.

By Allyson WallerJuly 1, 2020
Chris Town, 67, was not seriously injured on Sunday when he fell into a well that was hidden beneath the floorboards of a house in Guilford, Conn.
Chris Town, 67, was not seriously injured on Sunday when he fell into a well that was hidden beneath the floorboards of a house in Guilford, Conn.Guilford Fire Department
Chris Town was assembling a bed frame for a friend’s son in a 19th-century house in Guilford, Conn., on Sunday afternoon when the floor gave out beneath him.

“I could hear a crackling noise,” Mr. Town, 67, said. “And I looked, and I felt myself starting to fall. My feet were going right through the floor. I fell, and then I kept falling. I thought, ‘You know, there’s ground down here someplace.’”

Mr. Town, it turned out, had fallen into a fieldstone cistern well that was concealed beneath the floorboards. It was more than 20 feet deep and filled with about seven feet of water, according to the Guilford Fire Department, which rescued Mr. Town.

“He literally disappeared, right in front of my eyes,” Mr. Town’s wife, Angela Town, said. “He was gone.”

Mr. Town emerged from the ordeal with only minor injuries, including soreness and bruises.

“But I feel good,” he said. “I could be dead.”

The Towns, who live in Guilford, were helping a family friend, Diane Martin, move into the house, which Ms. Martin had recently rented. Ms. Martin said that she had told them about a soft spot in the floor in one of the rooms on the ground level, and that she had asked Mr. Town to place a bed frame over the spot so it would not pose a hazard to her 10-year-old son, who has autism.

Ms. Martin then left to go pick up her son and 12-year-old daughter. Mr. Town stood up as he was working on the bed frame, and the floor gave out, his wife said.

Ms. Town called 911, frantically telling a dispatcher that her husband had fallen into a “black hole,” according to a recording released by the Fire Department.

When firefighters arrived, they lowered a life jacket to Mr. Town, who had used his feet to brace himself against the walls of the well to keep his head above water. Assistant Chief Michael Shove of the Guilford Fire Department said firefighters assembled a pulley system using a ceiling joist and a tree outside the room. A firefighter, Don Venuti, was lowered into the well and attached a harness to Mr. Town, and the two men were pulled to safety. The operation took about 45 minutes, Chief Shove said.

Capt. Chris Gode, who supervised the rescue for the Fire Department, said he had not encountered anything like it in more than a quarter-century as a firefighter.

“Certainly this situation is very unique and presented itself with a lot of obstacles to overcome,” he said. “First one I’ve done in my career, and I’ve been on the job for 26 years.”

Mr. Town was taken to Yale New Haven Hospital, shivering with hypothermia, he said. He said he discouraged the staff from taking X-rays, because he did not think he had broken anything.

The house was built in 1843, according to property records, though Joel Helander, the Guilford town historian, said it dated to 1842. The listed owner, William G. Butterly, could not be reached.

Dennis Johnson, director of health for the town of Guilford, said it appeared that an addition was built over the well at some point.

“Sometimes homes had wells in their basements in order to protect them from freezing,” he said. “Then, with really historic homes, sometimes we occasionally find them in an addition on a house, or in a basement or right next to the house. Occasionally you do find them, but it’s not real common.”

Mr. Helander said it was “more probable than not” that the well had been dug around the time the house was built.

“It appears probable that the addition incorporated an old well that was existing at the time of the house construction, and they incorporated it into the house,” Mr. Helander said. “That was probably the primary water supply until they drilled a new well.”

Carol Lynn Peterson, who sold the house in 2015 after living there for 42 years, said she was stunned to learn this week that there was a well beneath her former home.

On Monday afternoon, Ms. Town said she and her husband were still reeling from what happened to them a day earlier.

Mr. Town — who has had temporary ischemic attacks, or ministrokes, in the past and has two stents in his coronary arteries — said things could have been much worse.

Ms. Town praised the firefighters for rescuing her husband.

“They saved his life,” she said. “Watching them in action was nothing but surreal, how they just synchronize and work with each other and just from start to finish. We’re overwhelmed with gratitude.”

Correction: July 1, 2020
An earlier version of this article misstated the given name of the town historian in Guilford, Conn. He is Joel Helander, not John.

Allyson Waller is part of 2020-2021 New York Times Fellowship class and is a general assignment reporter on the Express desk. @allyson_renee7

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Great job Capt.! Old houses are always full of surprises.

It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call "The Cistern Zone".

Good thing it wasn’t an abandoned old septic tank.

Thanks guys.....Mr Town was very appreciative once we got him back to where he started his little adventure. He said he could hear a lot of noises above him but wasn’t sure what was going on....what he heard was my guys removing the Sheetrock ceiling above the hole looking for a good anchor point for part of a rope system to lower a firefighter and haul both back up....under the Sheetrock was tongue and groove boards, then he must have heard us using a sawzall to remove those boards.....which revealed the support system for the ceiling....I took a look, not adequate....looked above that and saw full dimensional roof rafters (1800 house) ....told my guy I assigned the high point anchor to get a chainsaw, cut the roof on either side of that rafter....that is what we’re using. I had also assigned guys outside the house to make an anchor point around a large tree outside the window....the rope system would be operated from there at my direction....so yes, the guy did hear a lot of noises, but the guy I sent in the hole did an awesome job keeping Mr. Town calm and reassured.
He did have an iPhone in his pocket btw Vanquished....once he was in the well in 7 feet of water it didn’t work...he tried to call 911 and it failed....his wife made the call after retrieving her cell from their car.
Cool call, confined space rescue by definition....they are low frequency/high risk calls and I’m very appreciative my department spends big dollars on quality training....it paid off for our victim

Well that's not good.

That’s an awesome story!

Growing up on an old farm, wells were always a danger. We had several that were still open on some of the old homesites on the large farm we had. We dropped rocks in to hear them hit the water, but had enough sense to not follow!

A few years ago my dad told me about one I never knew about. In the early 1800s there was a blacksmith that had a house on some of the property. Right after WWII my grandfather built a little house near where it stood. No running water or bathroom. They found the well for the old house at ground level, no well house or walls above, and sealed it off with a piece of metal of some sort.

Now I imagine being unfortunate enough to be the poor soul walking through there one day (nobody remembers where it is) and stepping on that nearly 80 year old, grown-over covering!