A heart-stopping, shocking video captures the moment a quick-thinking rescue team saves a toddler after he fell through a deep, narrow PVC pipe in the garden of a Kansas home.
Bentley was playing in his front yard on Sunday when he stepped over a loose manhole cover and fell nine feet, nearly five times the height of the 14-month-old baby.
“Bentley, we’re going to get you out. He’s going to be OK,” his father, Blake, told his crying son as emergency workers stood around the foot-wide hole, trying to figure out how to get the toddler above ground.
“Your mommy will be here soon. We will help you. It’s going to be OK,” her mother Elizabeth added, fighting back tears.
With the boy’s cries echoing in the background, staff used small PVC pipes and rope to create a trap, similar to those used to capture wildlife, to capture Bentley.
The dramatic footage shows one crew member carefully maneuvering the pipe while another reaches into the narrow opening to grab the toddler, who quickly stops crying as soon as he sees sunlight again.
Miraculously, the boy was not injured in the chaos.
“It was honestly very stressful and traumatic. It felt like the longest 25 minutes of my life,” Elizabeth said. I told Kake.
His relieved mother said she witnessed a freak accident happen right before her eyes when Bentley stepped on a loose cover while running across the grass, causing it to flip over and fall into an exposed hole.
Blake, who was working on his car in the driveway of his home, became aware of the tragedy when he heard screams from both his son and wife.
“My wife let out that horrible scream. I was with her when she gave birth to our two babies and that’s the kind of scream you never want to hear because you know something dangerous has happened,” he told media.
Although heartbreaking, Bentley’s constant crying was comforting and indicated he was conscious.
Emergency workers tried various methods to reach the boy, but the panicked boy foiled multiple rescue attempts and Bentley threw off the rope rescuers were trying to wrap around him.
The team also tried to use a PVC pipe with an L-shaped end to pass under the child, but when that failed they came up with the idea of making a catch pole.
“He settled down immediately. It was a big sigh of relief,” Blake said.
Bentley was covered in mud and in shock but did not require a trip to hospital.
Authorities said the boy’s own quick thinking may have prevented further damage: He may have swung his arms around himself to slow his fall.
No one is sure what the purpose of the pipes in the family’s garden is, but it’s speculated they may have once been connected to a sump pump and used to carry excess rainwater away from the house.
Blake and Elizabeth are already making plans to bolt the cover down so it won’t move.
Moundridge, a town of about 2,000 people, is about 40 miles north of Wichita.
With post wire
