Heart-stopping video captured the moment a quick-thinking rescue crew saved a toddler who had fallen down a deep narrow PVC pipe in his Kansas yard.
Bentley had been playing in his family’s front yard Sunday when he stepped over a loose manhole cover and plummeted nine feet — about five times the 14-month-old’s height.
“We’re gonna get you out Bentley, it’s okay,” dad Blake told his screaming son as the emergency crew stood around the hole, measuring one foot in diameter, and contemplated how to bring the toddler back above ground.
“Momma’s right here. We’re gonna get you out. It’s okay,” his mother, Elizabeth, added while holding back tears.
As the boy’s wails echoed in the background, the crew crafted a smaller PVC pipe and rope into a catch pole similar to the ones used to snare wildlife to grab Bentley.
The dramatic video shows one crew member carefully maneuvering the pipe as another reaches into the narrow hole and grabs hold of the toddler — who instantly ceases sobbing upon seeing sunlight again.
Miraculously, the boy was not injured in the chaos.
“It was so stressful and traumatic honestly and it felt like the longest 25 minutes of my life,” Elizabeth told KAKE.
The relieved mother said she witnessed the freak accident unfold before her eyes — Bentley was running across the lawn when he stepped on the loose cover, flipping it over and then plunging into the exposed hole.
Blake, who was working on a car in the driveway, was alerted to the calamity by shrieks — which came from both his son and his wife.
“My wife screamed that horrible scream. I was with her when she gave birth to two babies and this is the scream you never want to hear because you know something treacherous has happened,” he told the outlet.
Although heartbreaking, Bentley’s constant cries were encouraging and showed he was conscious.
First responders tried several different methods to reach the young boy, who in his panic thwarted several of their attempts — Bentley threw off a rope that the crew had tried to loop around him.
The team also tried to use a PVC pipe with an L-shaped bend on the end to loop under the child, but when that failed they had the idea to create a catch pole.
“He immediately calmed down. It was a huge sigh of relief,” said Blake.
Bentley was muddied and shocked but didn’t require a trip to the hospital.
Officials said the boy’s own quick thinking may have saved him from further harm — they suspect he slowed his descent as he fell by flailing his arms.
No one is certain of the purpose of the pipe in the family’s yard but suspect it may have been connected to a sump pump at one point, used to divert excess rainwater away from the house.
Blake and Elizabeth have already made plans to bolt the cover down so nothing can move it.
Moundridge, a town of about 2,000, is about 40 miles north of Wichita.
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