Channel 9, Friday, obtained the 911 call made by a man who fell down an open manhole in Daytona Beach. It took firefighters an hour, in the middle of the night, to pull him to safety.
The victim was at Halifax Medical Center on Friday, being treated for possible spinal injuries. He lives around the corner and was trying to cross Pinewood Street to go to a nearby store when he fell into the open manhole.
"How long have you been there?" the 911 dispatcher asked the man.
"I don't know ... my head hurts," the man said.
The desperate and disoriented 26-year-old man told the Volusia County 911 operator he had no idea where he was or how he got there.
"I think I fell," he said on the call.
The man was walking on Mason Avenue and Pinewood Street when he fell in a manhole that didn't have a cover on it shortly before 2:00am Friday.
"Stay with me, okay? What are you close by on Mason? Is there anything you can see?" the dispatcher asked the man.
For 17 minutes, the operator tried to figure out where the man was calling from, an impossible task since the man was using a cell phone and couldn't even remember his own name.
"I can't move. There's something wrong with my back," he told the dispatcher.
Fortunately, a passerby noticed the man inside a storm water junction box approximately eight feet below the surface.
"Hey! He's hurt bad, man. Mason and Pinewood," the passerby told the dispatcher.
Firefighters who arrived at the scene were unable to find the manhole cover. The city said the manhole covers tend to disappear from time to time. However, a city spokesperson refused to comment on the specific incident.
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