Fallen toddler well rescued after 18-hour excavation

Rescuers in Thailand worked all night to rescue a 19-month-old girl from a dry well – 18 hours after she fell down the deep well while playing at a cassava farm.

Workers clapped and cheered as the toddler, the daughter of migrant workers from neighboring Myanmar, was pulled from the 49-foot-deep well and placed on a stretcher, which carried her to a waiting ambulance.

“Great job guys. We did it!” exclaimed one rescuer as his colleagues in Phop Phra district, Tak province, cried and hugged.

The child fell into the hole, which has an opening 12 inches wide, late Monday afternoon while her parents were working on the plantation.

The parents said they left their child under a tree while they tilled a nearby field. When they went back to check on the toddler during recess, they couldn’t find him and then heard screams coming from the well.

The deep pit, dug by the landowner as an artesian well, has been left undiscovered after failing to encounter groundwater, Sanya Phetset, district chief of Phop Phra, told Thairath TV on Tuesday.

The first rescuers to arrive at the scene shouted through the hole and heard the child screaming back, local media reported.

A camera was then lowered into the abyss to check the situation, after which a hose was snaked in to give the girl oxygen.

The workers spent a sleepless night digging alongside the shaft, using multiple backhoes and other excavation equipment.

“At first it seemed an easy operation because it looked like loose earth, but when we started digging we found rocks, which made it difficult because excavators can’t dig through it,” Sanya said.

He explained that the operation was delicate because when digging, there was a risk that the sides of the well would fall on the child. So rescuers switched to shovels to remove the last few feet of dirt.

The toddler was immediately taken to Phop Phra Hospital after being taken to safety.

“She’s safe now. She’s a bit tired, but it’s nothing serious,” Sanya said.

With mail wires