HARRISON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Rescue crews from multiple agencies around the Fox Valley responded to a call for help Tuesday evening.
They arrived to save an 11-year-old boy sucked by flood waters into a narrow drainage pipe, in a new subdivision in Harrison.
“This could have gone a million different ways and it went out this way, and he’s very lucky to be alive.”
Wesley Pompa, Deputy Chief with the Harrison Fire Department, was among those who responded to the call.
He tells Fox11 what he encountered in the drainage ditch.
“The water was up to the white line on that post. There was a whirlpool formed. We combed the area there to see if we could feel him, anything.”
The fast running water where the boy went in the culvert pipe ends up in a retention pond several blocks away.
Rescuers thought with the strong current the boy may have made his all the way through, and crews were called to search that area too, hoping for the best.
But the 11-year-old, who is not being identified, only traveled about 30 feet in the pipe filled with murky, muddy water.
“Must have been able to hold breath long enough. Judging from how the water was going, it’s like a gun. You’re in a chamber, you get shot out the other end,” explained Pompa, who figured the boy made it through to the manhole section of the pipe in seconds.
Pompa says the kid caught another break.
“He’s fortunate that’s actually a ‘T’ right there so the water flows east and west there. He probably hit the concrete culvert and was able to stand up and reach for the ladder.”
Inside the manhole, you can see the small drainage pipe at the bottom, down about 12 feet. Pompa says only three rungs of the ladder were out of the water. And the road with the manhole was also covered in water–which must have trapped some air inside.
“We were literally standing over top of that manhole cover when a finger poked out that hole.”
Rescuers could then hear calls for help from the boy, and firefighters opened the manhole cover and Pompa pulled the child out.
“His face was probably as big as mine when we got that cover open. I don’t think it was all the way open and we were already pulling him out.”
A day after the incident, a grate now blocks the opening to the culvert pipe to prevent a future tragedy. Pompa believes a developer of the new subdivision added the metal bars.
The family of the boy expressed thanks to the rescuers and relief in how the rescue turned out.
The boy’s father said he is doing well at home after initially being checked out at an area hospital. The father indicated the family still struggles with what could have been a much different ending.
