Riverside city firefighters on Saturday, Oct. 31, dragged a man out of the narrow drainage pipe in which he had gotten stuck.

Homeless people in the area of Commerce and Cottage streets heard the man’s cries for help around 11:30 a.m. and called 911, Division Chief Greg White, a Fire Department spokesman,  said Sunday.

“He went into the pipe and the pipe started to narrow from 20 to 15 inches, which is the same size as a normal adult male,” White said.

The pipe runs under the railroad tracks, and firefighters called for rail traffic to be shut down. The Fire Department’s technical rescue team hooked a strap to the man’s ankles and pulled him out, White said. The operation lasted about two hours.

There were conflicting reports, White said, on how long the man had been in the pipe; some said a few days while others said maybe as long as it took him to get stuck and call for help.

The man, who had a long, unkempt beard, grimaced several times as rescuers loaded him into an ambulance. His vital signs were stable, White said.

The homeless people there said they did not recognize the man, White said. White did not know why the man crawled into the pipe.

Riverside called on its urban search-and-rescue team that gets sent to disasters around the country. All firefighters receive annual training in what they call inaccessible rescues.

“They’re constantly training for these types of scenarios,” White said. “Always training for the low-frequency, high-risk events.”

White urged people to obey trespass warnings.

“People aren’t supposed to be in these locations for a reason,” White said.

©2026 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit pe.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.