A 15-year-old managed to get stuck in an 11-inch-wide drain pipe during a sledding mishap on a Kansas golf course, according to authorities.
The teen, whose identity has not been released, was sledding with a friend on a golf course at Sand Creek Station when he fell feet-first into the uncovered pipe in the ground, according to the Newton Fire and EMS Division.
EMS officials rushed to rescue the boy after his friend asked a neighbor to call 911, and found him trapped in the pipe with only his fingertips “visible at ground level,” officials said.
“Thanks to his quick thinking, this event had a positive outcome. It is important to always have someone with you while sledding to call for help in the event of an emergency,” the fire department wrote in a statement.
The boy was safely removed from the hole and brought to a local hospital in stable condition.
The bizarre sledding snafu was quickly analyzed by skeptical commenters who decried that it would be nearly impossible for a 15-year-old to become trapped in the small drainage pipe.
In a follow-up post, the Newton Fire and EMS Division clarified the hole had an interior diameter of 11 inches, and that their “priority was getting him out, not how he managed to get in.”
“It’s kind of mind-boggling how it even happened to be honest,” one resident told KWCH.
The drain pipe should have had a metal grate covering it, and it was replaced after the incident, authorities said.
“My reaction initially was there’s just no way a person could fit in it,” Sand Creek Station General Manager Dustin Housh told the outlet.
“I didn’t think it was possible, so it seems to be kind of an incredible feat, and I’m curious to how that happened.”
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