Man rescued after falling into well

FREMONT >> Firefighters rescued an elderly farmer who toppled 26 feet into a well Saturday when the floor of his pump house gave way, a Fremont battalion chief said.

The man, who is in his 90s but in good health, spent about half an hour treading water and clinging to the walls of the brick-lined well before firefighters arrived, Battalion Chief Gary Ashley said.

The first thing they did was toss a life jacket down to the tired man through the 4.5-foot opening of the well, so he could float, Ashley said. Then they had to figure out how to get him out.

“This is an unusual call for an urban fire department,” Ashley said.

The incident, which started around 10 am, took place on 1-acre farm surrounded by new houses and an office building near Driscoll and Mission streets. The pump house looked about 100 years old, as did the farmhouse, Ashley said.

The man, who was not named, had gone out to work on something in the pump house, Ashley said. When he didn’t return, “his daughter, also elderly, noticed he was missing,” the chief said, and called 911.

To pull the 6-foot-tall man out, firefighters first had to remove the roof of the small shed-like structure and dismantle the rest using chain saws and power tools. That enabled them to get a ladder truck with the right equipment close to the oval hole.

Altogether, the man was in the chilly water for about two hours.

It could have been worse, the chief said.

“That well was so deep,” he said, “we never did find the bottom of it.”