CHENNAI: A 74-year-old man who accidentally fell into a 50-foot deep abandoned well in
Tiruttani
, around 80km from Chennai, and was rescued early on Saturday, after three days in shallow water.
Rangarajulu, who sells knives for a living, had stood in water that was about one-and-a-half-feet-deep and cried himself hoarse before fire and rescue services personnel from the Tiruttani fire station, just 200 metres away, managed to pull him out, police said. When he was brought to the surface, the skin of his feet had turned pale, the result of standing in water for more than three days, an officer said.
A team led by Tiruttani station fire officer N
Baskaran
had to battle for nearly an hour, first clearing the thorns and thick vegetation around the abandoned well and then sending two men in, before they could bring him out.“Driver M
Sivakumar and mechanic-cum-driver
Hari Krishnan were lowered into the well at the end of a rope and brought him out,“ said Baskaran.
A famished Rangarajulu was rushed to the government hospital in Tiruttani and wheeled into the intensive care unit where he remains under observation.
Quoting Rangarajulu, Baskaran said the senior citizen continuously cried for help. “I lost my voice because of lack of sleep and food. I consumed some water from the well, which was full of moss and dead leaves,“ he told the officer.
On September 26, the resi dent of
Koramangala
village, who had come to sell knives in Tiruttani, later wandered into the property owned by a man named M C
Krishna Babu
to attend a call of nature and fell into the well. When he didn't return home, his family members launched a search and finally lodged a complaint with the Tiruttani police.
Early on Saturday , Krishna Babu heard a cry from the part of his farm that no one frequented and went there with some of his family members.The cry , he later told rescue services personnel, was very feeble and sounded more like the meow of a cat. They were shocked to see the elderly man standing in water and cry out.
They immediately rushed to the fire station and informed the personnel who managed to pull him out.
A Selvaraj, who has been working as a crime reporter in Tamil Nad...
Read MoreA Selvaraj, who has been working as a crime reporter in Tamil Nadu since 1994, has several sensational scoops to his credit. In 1998, he exposed a cheating racket led by Divya Mathaji and her followers in Tiruchi. He broke several stories which caught nation’s attention, including the suicide of 2G scam accused Sadiq Batcha.
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