A woman survived a five-metre tumble down a Pender Island well into extremely cold, deep water with only minor injuries last week.
“The well had a concrete cover over it and while she was on the perimeter of this field picking blackberries, the cover disintegrated and she fell through the opening,” said Pender Island Fire Lt. Todd Bulled. “It was a fairly small cover. She said she was picking blackberries and a second later, she was at the bottom of this well.”
The woman landed in water over her head. She pressed her legs toward one side of the column to hold herself up, but because the water was so cold she got hypothermia and had trouble maintaining that, Bulled said.
She was also treading water as she called for help.
A person in the neighbourhood heard a faint cry and thought a lamb was caught in a fence on one of the adjacent properties, Bulled said. That neighbour checked and saw no disturbance with their sheep.
“Then they heard the sound again and another neighbour came out.
“There were several property owners on scene by the time we got there. By luck, they had heard her a few times and finally pinpointed the well,” he said.
“They had thrown a rope down to her to help her hold on.”
Eight firefighters, two B.C. Ambulance paramedics and two RCMP officers were on scene during the rescue. The rescue team did a quick assessment of potential hazards and the woman’s condition, then lowered a specialist into the well.
The woman was secured in a harness and raised to safety, then transferred to the care of paramedics.
“It was a multiagency response. When ambulance receives a call of a fall of that nature, they launch a helicopter. They were already preparing a landing site near the well, but they didn’t need to use it,” Bulled said.
The woman was treated on scene and taken to a local clinic to be assessed by a doctor, he said.
“She is so fortunate to be discovered early on. She is so lucky she fell through that small opening and only received minor injuries.”
The call was really well executed, he said. These calls can be quite complicated with the equipment and the rigging.
“Because we are a volunteer department, the right people showed up on the right day and everything went awesome,” said Bulled.
