In an inspiring and heartwarming story out of Catonsville, Maryland, residents and first responders from the Baltimore County Fire Department rallied to save a grown man whose age and identity are unknown, 24 hours after he fell 30 ft down a hidden well on his property last week, WBAL reports.
“I was going to get my dogs in from the backyard, and I heard some dude calling for help, so I didn’t know what to do. So I went downstairs and grabbed my dad, and we went in the backyard to, like, look around, see if we could hear anything,” neighbor Wesley Straffin told WBAL. “We started to call out hello, hello, because we couldn’t tell where it was coming from. “And he started replying. He said, ‘Help, help. Hello.’ And it turns out it was our neighbor right behind us who had fallen into a well,” Wesley’s dad Matt added. Some of the locals threw bottles of water down to the man while they waited for firefighters to respond. The rescue was relatively quick and uncomplicated. The man was hospitalized with shoulder pain and shock but is expected to make a full recovery.
The man’s extrication from the chasm came exactly 37 years to the day after the events depicted in Everybody’s Baby: The Rescue of Jessica McClure, starring Beau Bridges and Patty Duke. It’s unlikely the Catonsville rescue will be the subject of a similar made-for-TV film but on the plus side none of the firefighter will end up committing suicide over the deprivation of fame and attention.