Teenager saved after 12 hours in sewers

A 13-year-old boy said he was praying to God for help after falling into a river of sewage in Los Angeles.

The boy was rescued after being swept away and spending more than 12 hours in the city’s toxic and maze-like underground sewer system.

Jesse Hernandez had been playing with other children on wooden planks over an access portal to the sewer system during a family outing at a Los Angeles park.

When a plank broke, Jesse fell 25ft and landed in fast-moving sewage, said Brian Humphrey, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department.

The other children told adults, who called 911, initiating a frantic and exhaustive 12-hour search of labyrinthine underground pipes using cameras propped on flotation devices.

Rescuers finally found Jesse about a mile away after seeing images of handprints on a sewage pipe. A sanitation crew rushed to the area and opened a manhole.

The crew lowered down a hose to Jesse, who was about 11ft deep in the pipe.

Rescuers gave him immediate medical attention, including hosing him down to get rid of the sewage and cleaning out his eyes and nose with sterile saline, Mr Humphrey said.

Jesse immediately asked for a mobile phone to call his family. He then telephoned his mother.

The boy later said he was tired but otherwise fine.

“I was praying to God to help me and to not die,” Jesse said. “It was all quiet. You could just hear the water running through and you couldn’t see anything. It was dark.”

Video released by the city later in the day showed long dark marks on the sides of the dank sewage pipe, which was about 4ft in diameter, where Jesse’s fingers would have slid.