9. I fell into an open storm sewer

“I’ve got one. In college I worked security for extra money. One of my regular assignments was the overnight shift at a metal fabrication factory. One of the primary reasons I was there was to ensure that no one broke in to steal all the valuable metal that was stocked on site (which was an occasional problem). That, in turn, involved checking the perimeter fence for damage at least once a shift. That couldn’t be done effectively by camera; it instead required physically walking the fence. So it was that one night I was walking the perimeter fence in the middle of a thunderstorm. My attention was on the beam of my flashlight illuminating the fence as I walked past. So, I wasn’t really focused on where I was walking, despite walking through grass that was a bit over my waist.

Apparently I just stepped awkwardly on a patch of particularly slick grass or mud as I was heading down hill, but before I knew what was happening I had slid feet first into an open storm sewer. Some asshole had stolen the manhole cover recently and the edges around the opening were wet with rain and mud thanks to the storm.

Let me just take a moment to explain this storm sewer. First off, it was shaped just like an oubliette. If you’re not familiar with what that is, picture a concrete cell that is shaped like a jug – a small opening at the top with sides that slope inward to prevent someone from crawling out. In this case the bottom was maybe 10ft square and the opening for the manhole was about twice the normal width in the center of the ceiling. There was no ladder attached and the fall was maybe 20 feet down. At the bottom the floor was sloped to form two trenches, in the shape of a cross. There were sewer channels going off in 4 directions, but they were only maybe a foot wide across and were blocked with metal grates. At the bottom, there were debris, including a number of large broken pieces of rebar. There were several pieces that were pointing straight up. I definitely would have impaled myself on several jagged points of rusty metal, had I hit the bottom. So, no way to escape, a long fall and a probable disabling injury at the bottom.

I somehow caught myself by hooking the edge of the opening on my elbow as I fell in. I dropped my flashlight to the bottom of the pit before I stopped my momentum, so I had a great view of all that broken rebar below me while I was struggling to escape (maybe that was the collapsed remains of the ladder?). As I tried to get another handhold, my cell phone skipped out of my pocket and hit the bottom.

It felt like forever before I somehow pulled myself out of that opening. I don’t doubt adrenaline gave me a considerable boost of strength, but even so, I nearly lost my hold on the edge three times before I managed to scramble out. I was kinda just jerking my knees towards the opening and “jumping” a couple inches thanks to the momentum. My free hand kept scrambling for something solid to grab but I never really found anything. I’m honestly not sure how exactly I pulled myself out just using the surface tension between the mud & concrete and my hands & forearm. It felt like a miracle.

All I could think of after I pulled myself out was how I wasn’t due to be relieved for another seven hours, seven hours before anyone would even start wondering where I was and that whole time I might have been trapped at the bottom of a pit, impaled on some rods of rebar, in the rain. I also wanted to kill whoever stole that manhole cover.” — TheLagDemon