Young Boy Sucked Through Drainpipe, Emerges Unharmed

A young boy is recovering at home after being sucked into a drainpipe and carried several hundred yards.

The boy was five years old and had been playing with other children at a party when he got sucked into the drainpipe.

The drainpipe carried the boy several yards and then dumped the boy into the Caloosahatchee River, according to the Fort Myers Fire Department.

Battalion Chief Chris Bevan said the boy was only in the drainpipe for about a minute or two, and he only received minor injuries after traveling about 300 yards according to the Huffington Post.

Fort Myers News Press stated that once the boy was recovered from the drainpipe, the city blocked off the drainpipe by placing two metal bars across the pipe’s opening to prevent the accident from happening again.

City Manager Billy Mitchell had the following to say:

“This appears to be an isolated incident, pretty much an aberration. The incident certainly calls attention to the need for precautions along those storm drainage pipes to keep children from being able to get into those pipes.”

Sidney Oakes-Lottridge, 14, lives down the street from the scene of the accident and said that neighborhood children often play in the flooded ditches after a storm.

She told reporters that she was planning on joining the other kids after the rain storm had stopped saying that “it looked like a lot of fun.”

She quickly changed her mind after she saw the 5-year-old boy strapped to a stretcher.

“All we saw was his back,” Oakes-Lottridge said. “He was bleeding, and he was crying and crying.”

She continued on to say the following:

“I would have never realized that was a danger, to play in those ditches. It could just as easily been one of us, my little brother or something.”

The boy’s father, Brain Just, has said that he has returned home and is recovering just fine.

“He is a very resilient kid,” Just said, “tough kid.”

The family has extended their thanks to all those involved in helping their boy out after he was sucked into the drainpipe.

[Image via WINK News]