Chinese boy freed from 40cm-wide well in dramatic six-hour rescue

Rescue workers had to pump oxygen into the narrow chamber just to keep the boy alive while they conducted their six-hour rescue operation

Wednesday 12 March 2014 13:46 EDT

The dramatic moment the boy was freed from the 40cm wide well

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A young boy has been rescued after falling down a 36 ft-deep well which was just 40cm wide, leaving firefighters struggling to reach him.

Rescue workers had to pump oxygen into the narrow chamber just to keep the boy alive while they conducted their six-hour rescue operation in Hebei Province, north China.

Teams used three excavators in order to clear earth surrounding the well in a massive rescue operation.

They finally managed to break through a section of the well wall to reach the ten-year-old, who suffered minor bruising but was otherwise unhurt, Sky News has reported.

The incident is far from the first of its kind in China, where numerous reports have emerged over recent months of adults and children finding themselves trapped in small but dangerous spaces.

Last month, a video emerged of man pushing his girlfriend into a manhole, where she then spent the next 60 hours trapped in before being rescued by pedestrians who heard her cries for help.

In December, a five-year-old girl had to be cut free from railings in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, after trapping her head in between the stone pillars.

Just two weeks before this, a two-year-old boy accidentally fell into a deserted well and had to be dragged out by firefighters in a dramatic rescue.

And in perhaps the most bizarre incident, a 16-year-old found himself stuck in a 25cm wide gap between the walls of two warehouses.