A man who slipped and fell into a narrow hole in the Sunset Cliffs area of San Diego County, California, was freed Friday following an 18-hour rescue mission.
The man, who has not been identified, was spotted Thursday afternoon. He had fallen under broken concrete sections of the side of a cliff near the water, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said in a post on X, and was pinned from the waist down.
The opening was only 18 inches and the space below was small, the department said.
The rescue operation had been hampered by bad weather and the location where the man was trapped. The fire department said on the social media platform X that the location was “very treacherous for rescuers.”
At one point, a rescuer was able to tunnel from below and reach the man’s feet but had to exit because the tide started coming in, NBC San Diego reported. The fire department said it had provided the man with warming blankets and “created a shelter” for him overnight until the rescue could resume.
It’s not clear how long the man had been stuck in the rocks. He told firefighters that he had been screaming for days and wasn’t sure how long he had been trapped, according to NBC San Diego.
It’s believed the man only suffered minor injuries, the news station reported.