Man rescued after three days in drain asks: Got a cigarette?
A MAN who spent three days trapped in a drain reckons he wandered for six miles underground before he was rescued.
Police removed a manhole cover to pull him to safety after staff from nearby businesses heard cries for help coming from beneath the road.
The 48-year-old man’s first words after he re-emerged blinking in the daylight were: ‘Does anyone have a fag?’
He was taken to hospital for treatment to foot and ankle injuries, along with prolonged exposure to cold temperatures.
The unnamed man reportedly broke both his heels.
He is believed to have fallen into a drainage system running beneath Romford, east London, which carries rainwater into the River Rom but does not transport sewage.
Ian Swann, who works for an electrical company, said he and colleagues helped police free the man last Thursday.
‘I walked to one side of the road with the police officer and we could hear, “help, help” – it was then that we realised it was coming from below,’ he added.
‘We got some crow bars and got him out from under the road. I don’t know how long he had been down there. He just wanted a fag and he wouldn’t talk to anyone until they gave him one.’
Sam Palmer, a manager at a vehicle hire company, watched the rescue. She said: ‘He looked very dishevelled but at that moment, the crowd gave a sigh of relief as we knew he was okay.
‘Before that we had all been really worried. It was unbelievable.’ She said she was alerted to the man’s plight after a neighbour heard his cries for help, adding: ‘We could hear a faint cry for help and we began searching. ‘But we were looking up and all around. He just kept shouting “help” over and over again but he didn’t say that he was in a drain.’ Lorraine Moss, from Romford, was on her way to work when she saw the man stuck in the drain. She said: ‘Initially, I assumed someone had been run over. However, as I got closer I could see a man standing in the drain, only the top half of his body was visible and he was covered in dirt. It took quite a few people to lift the cover off and then there he was.’
Passer-by Stephanie Noe, 29, added: ‘The man was really dirty and I don’t think he was wearing any shoes. He looked a bit bewildered and confused.
‘He was saying he’d been down there for a couple of days. I don’t think he knew where he was.’
A resident who did not wish to be named said the scene reminded him of Stephen King’s horror book and film It, in which the clown villain emerges from a drain. He said: ‘It was absolutely bizarre. If I had seen balloons start coming out … I would have scarpered in case the clown had risen from the drain.’
The rescued man told police he had entered the pipe in Barking, six miles away, three days earlier.
But officials from Thames Water said they believe he entered the drains from a new housing estate, about a mile away. The water firm said an engineer had checked for broken manholes in the area but could not find any the man could have fallen through.
‘Heard his cries for help’