A six-year-old boy trapped inside a 10-foot garage pit at a butcher shop in Velachery was rescued by firemen in an operation lasting over an hour on Sunday morning. He was admitted to a private hospital with bruises on his body.
Tension prevailed at the shop on Velachery Main Road from 8.30 a.m. after R. Kishore, who came along with his father Ravi Kumar, a resident of Draupathi Amman 1 Street, to buy chicken, slipped and fell into the pit.
“The pit, 10 feet in depth and four feet in width, is used to dump the butchered waste, including water and is cleaned once a week. The inlet is nearly one foot in diameter and was covered with a sack. The boy stepped on the sack and fell inside,” Station Fire Officer (Tambaram) R. Suryaprakash told The Hindu . After desperate attempts by shopkeepers and the child’s father to pull out the boy failed, the Fire Department was alerted.
Over 20 firemen on three tenders rushed to the spot and began breaking open the concrete floor.
According to a local resident, the firemen sent a cell phone into the hole and the boy’s father spoke to him giving him hope.