You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The whopper of a story.
A 53-year-old is the most wanted interview in Nashville tonight.
Why?
Because he was rescued from an 18 inch water pipe under ground.
Sunday afternoon, someone at the Sportsplex tennis court heard a muffled scream for help.
Police arrive. Then fire fighters.
My God, there’s a man stuck in a pipe, someone must have screamed.
While fire fighters begin smashing the pipe with a sledge-hammer and using hydraulic equipment to cut the pipe apart, a 15 year vet gets in the pipe with the man.
Why?
To console him, to keep him calm, to let him know that everything will be ok.
Because we can’t get an interview with the victim, we beg for the next best thing, a fire fighter who helped rescue him.
That man is now at a table before the cameras answering our questions.
“I thought to get in the hole after visiting with fire fighters in Harlem,” he tells us. “They had a fire extrication. While on scene, the firefighters told me the best way to help the victim was to stay with them from start to finish.”
He says he relayed that to his captain who simply said “do it.”
So for the next few hours, the 15 year vet talks to the 53-year-old victim in the hole.
A few feet away, a horde of firefighters are banging and smashing and cutting.
According to the firefighter, the man was not very talkative, calling him exhausted and spent.
We all want to know why? Why would anyone crawl into a pipe so small, so dark, so foreboding?
“the man said he was adventurous. I told him to find a new adventure next time.”
The firefighter says there were some tense moments, especially when the rains came. The vet says he called for a water proof blanket to block out the visual for the victim so he wouldn’t worry about the storm drain filling with water.
Thankfully the rains didn’t last long. The man had his face pressed against the pipe. A prolonged rain could have been disastrous.
“He relayed to me he was cut up and swelled. And the position he was laying in, he was thoroughly wedged.”
At one point the fire vet tells me, he used a pry bar to send oxygen to the victim who reported that the fresh air helped.
While none of the man’s story has yet been verified, the victim tells rescuers he entered the water system near Charlotte avenue, about 1/2 mile from where he was cut free.
I go to that location and find a culvert and a water pipe. It has a ladder and easy access.
I look inside and see a 24 inch pipe.
I listen. I hear water running through the system.
According to water officials, from here to where he was extricated is 2100 feet.
That’s almost 1/2 a mile.
“We really didn’t know how he got there. We weren’t really concerned how he got there.All we were concerned with was getting him out.”
Because of medical history protection laws, the fire dept won’t tell us the man’s name. All we know is his story ends well and is pretty hard to believe.
And it really is hard to believe.
4 days in a pipe, underground, crawling 2100 feet?
It’s a tale that Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox would be proud of.
It’s a Pinocchio nose growing 2 feet kind of tale.
It’s a boy cried wolf and the town letting him get attacked by wolves kind of story.
I am glad the man is all right, but the need to know why a man would enter a dark and dangerous storm drain for 4 days? Well that question is still strong.
Adventurous?
I think something else.
Maybe he was running from trouble and ducked into the first rabbit hole he could find.
Maybe he was trying to break into the nearby sports complex and got stuck.
All I’m saying is adventure is a nice working theme.
For now.
But there’s more to this whopper than has been told.
Just ask Babe the Blue Ox.
Life’s Crazy™