Monday, June 30, 2008

NOT A GOOD DAY


When this man accidentally dropped his cigarette lighter down a hole in a pavement he made the ill-advised decision to try and retrieve it – with his feet. It was a choice he lived to regret. Having misjudged the diameter of the 18in (30 centimetre) hole, which workmen had dug to fix in a lamppost, he became wedged in it up to his armpits. A crowd of more than 100 people gathered around to watch as he struggled to wriggle free. Some tried to pull him out, but he was stuck fast. The unidentified man was eventually rescued by firefighters, after being laughed at and photographed by morning shoppers in Swansea, south Wales, for more than two hours. One onlooker, 29-year-old builder Gareth Hughes, said: "He was wedged in so tight we'd have pulled his arms out of their sockets if we'd pulled any harder. He was stuck fast, right up to his chest. "We were all stood around this unfortunate man in the hole having a right old laugh. "The man said he'd gone in feet first to retrieve a lighter he'd dropped in the hole and got stuck. "God knows how he even managed to squeeze in the hole because it was only 30cm in diameter. "Once the firemen arrived, they strapped a rope round him, beneath his armpits, and winched him out." "We used a quad pod, which has a winch, to pull him out."

No comments: