chimney rescues

Has anyone performed any rescue of victims from residential chimneys? If so, how did you do it?

Billy, where do you think of this stuff....try sleeping at night instead.

Interestingly though, although I was not participating in the incident, the Ithaca Fire Dept (NY) had a "chimney rescue (recovery)" about 5-6 years ago.

Ithaca is the home of Cornell Univ. and when the kids get here they leave their brains and common sense home.

The kid got on the roof (3.5 stories) and went into the chimney head first. He started calling for help as he slid farther down the flue. People inside the frat house could hear something, but were unable to find the source of the noise. During the night the kid kept calling for help, and with each breath slid farther down. Eventually he got as far as he could, and he suffocated due to lack of chest expansion space. That had to be a horrible way to die.

The FD arrived in the AM, and found the situatiuon of the body in the chimney. They took the chimney apart int he area of the body and removed same.

I recall the "Airgun 40" being the tool of choice, but I may be wrong.

I hope this was clear enough to understand, and a lesson..... "dont drink and climb into a chimney".......

See ya later

KBR

Ouch!

I was thinking Santas Clause!
What a way to go!

Cover those chimmies!

I was involved in a rescue of this type approx. 14 yrs. ago. Similiar incident, but the child who was trapped was autistic and attempted to run from his parents. They called us @ 23:00 and we searched the entire house, couldn't find the child. About 2.5 hours later, they thought they heard sounds coming from the chimney. Turns out the child had climbed up the flue and was wedged 6-7 feet from the entrance to the firepalce. We disassembled the masonry of the flue by using attachments to our air chisel. The child survived. That has been the only incident of this type I have been involved in.