It took 34 firefighters an hour-and-a-half to save a man trapped 20 feet underground after they say he shimmied into a sewer pipe while partying at Ocean Beach for some drunken spelunking.
The first 911 call came in around 3:30 a.m. Sunday from someone who said they heard a man screaming by Vicente Street and the Great Highway, city records show. Police apparently closed the case by reporting the subject “gone on arrival.”
At 3:41 a.m., the San Francisco Fire Department got a similar call about pleas for help emanating from a manhole at the same intersection in the Outer Sunset.
When crews arrived, they found a guy in his 30s stranded in a pipe about 40 feet from the manhole and 20 feet below the beachfront highway, SFFD spokesman Lt. Mariano Elias told The Standard.
Confined Space Rescue – Upper
— SAN FRANCISCO FIRE DEPARTMENT MEDIA (@SFFDPIO) August 18, 2024
Great Highway at Vicente –
One victim in a sewer pipe approximately 20 feet below the roadway. Rescuers are securing safe access and will assess any injuries once they reach the victim. pic.twitter.com/qVj9BKJ6N1
The man told firefighters he was on the beach when he found an open pipe and ventured inside.
Elias said the man later told the first firefighter he spoke to that he didn’t know how he got there or how long he was stuck “but mentioned he went to dance in there.”
One of the firefighters also noted that he smelled like booze.
“Of course,” Elias said, “if you’re going to a party at the beach, that happens quite a bit: alcohol being involved.”
Whatever inspired the man’s foray into the bowels of the beach, his subterranean dance party took a frightening turn when he tripped down a shaft that plopped him even deeper below ground with injuries serious enough to leave him immobilized.
Pulling him out was no easy task.
“This is far more labor-intensive than what would normally be any kind of removal of someone,” Elias said. “It’s pretty dangerous.”
A complex, risky rescue operation ensued.
Among the nearly three-dozen firefighters at the scene was one of the department’s two-person heavy rescue squads.
Because the man was trapped in a confined space with effluent outflow, the department’s hazardous materials experts had to pull a special permit to document personnel and equipment and set up fans and air-quality monitors in the potentially noxious corridor, Elias explained.
Crews used a rope and pulley to lower rescuers into the sewer and something called a Stokes basket — basically, a specialized stretcher — to cradle the man before maneuvering him horizontally across the pipe until they could haul him up through the manhole.
“Our members went in with the appropriate rescue harnesses,” Elias recounted. “Of course, they used flashlights, as it’s dark down there.”
The man finally took a breath of fresh air when he emerged at 5:14 a.m., officials said. He was then rushed to the San Francisco General Hospital where doctors treated him for serious injuries, the nature of which weren’t publicly disclosed.
Officials said they’re still trying to get to the bottom of what happened.
“A couple of questions … just off the top of my mind,” Elias said. “What was he doing alone? It’s pretty late: Why would he crawl in there? Those are the things he didn’t remember as to how he even got in there, which is interesting.”
Also unclear is why an opening to the pipes was unsecured.
The next afternoon, a circular trapdoor of sorts atop the concrete structure surrounding the pipes was boarded up and surrounded by yellow caution tape and orange cones. Empty beer cans and nitrous canisters were strewn about with a half-eaten Cup-of-Noodles, clamshell takeout food containers and a couple of vinyl records.
Elias said a city worker inspected the scene after the rescue.
A San Francisco Department of Public Works spokesperson said she hadn’t heard of the incident.
Someone from the Public Utilities Commission, which manages the city’s 1,000 miles of sewer-stormwater pipes, said the department will have more to say on Monday during normal business hours.