A 10-year-old boy was tonight being treated at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital after he was rescued from a 25-foot dry well at Stage 1 Jackson, St Michael.
Sub officer Henderson Nicholls of the Barbados Fire Service told Nation News they received the call just before 6 p.m. and the full operation from setup to retrieval took about 45 minutes when they arrived at the scene just after 6 o’clock.
The well was on the property where the child lived. He was said to be outside with his mother at the time.
“The casing wasn’t the best. It had deteriorated over time and the pressure of the child when he was running over it caused it to collapse and fall in,” Nicholls said.
They set up an Arizona tripod 3:1 system to haul both the victim and fire officer Rene Beckles, who effected the rescue, to the surface.
Nicholls explained the decision was made to send Beckles because he was a medic and would be able to conduct an assessment when they reached the young victim.
Beckles determined the boy had soft tissue damage to the neck, abrasions to the right ankle and a broken femur (thigh) bone. The fire officer applied both a collar to the neck and a splint to the broken leg.
The boy was in constant communication with fire officers throughout the process and a fire officer remained with his mother at the scene. Water tenders and rescue tenders from both Arch Hall and Bridgetown responded to incident and police officers were also on site.
Wooden pallets were temporarily placed on top of the well after the rescue. (SAT)
