BENGALURU : A farmer, who entered a pipeline to connect a water pipe to his land, was stuck inside for about two hours before he was rescued by the Fire and Emergency Service staff.
The incident took place in Singribovidoddi village in Ramanagara taluk, on Sunday morning.
Govindaraju aka Rajanna’s land is located on both sides of the bypass road constructed as part of the ongoing works of expressway between Bengaluru and Mysuru. A Fire & Emergency Service department official said that water linking pipelines were laid on Rajanna’s land.
To get a water connection to his land from the pipeline, Rajanna had entered it around 11 am and had crossed about 200 feet.
As a heap of mud had blocked the pipeline, he tried to pass through it but got stuck inside.
His son Venugopal, who sensed danger, contacted the department’s control room about 30 minutes after his father could not come out of the pipeline.
“We spoke to Rajanna from the other end of the pipeline. He was having difficulty in breathing and we arranged oxygen to be supplied to him. It was not possible for our men to enter the pipeline and bring him out, hence, it was decided to break open the pipeline. We used an earthmover to break the pipeline. We removed the head of mud manually and rescued him within one-and-a-half hours after we received the distress call,” the official said.
Rajanna said, “There was no phone with me but I was speaking to my son in a loud voice, giving him updates.”