Neightbor's daughter falls 45ft down into well...

[dixiedrifter]

There was a big brewhaha next door yesterday afternoon. The neighbor's 14yo daughter was playing on top of an abandoned hand dug well.

Apparently the well had a concrete cap on it, and for whatever reason it gave way and she fell about 45 feet down into waist deep water.

Rescue squad was on the scene within 20 minutes, and they had her extricated within 45 minutes by sending down a guy on a harness, attaching one to her, and pulling both of them up with a dually.

The girl was extremely luckly to be alive. I wouldn't have believed it if I had not have seen the whole thing myself. The good lord and his angels were working double overtime yesterday.

She only suffered minor injuries... some abrasions to her face legs and arms, and a bit of mild hypothermia from the water. Last I heard she was at the hospital for observation last the night.

Let this girl be an example. If you have an abandoned well on your property, make sure it is capped off, preferably with heavy steel, or concrete. Teach your kids not to play on top of it, and to generally stay away from it.

 

[farmerjim]

def have to agree w/ you on that one my grandparents had 1, about 18ft deep at their farm until we filled in it w/ stones and capped it off w/ some cement.

 

[Tig]

Two abandoned wells on my property. One is filled the other is capped with concrete.

 

[bigballer]

wow, glad she is ok, lucky girl. i just filled an open 3'x18ft'er with dirt/rocks. my wife kept giving me grief about it being a safety hazzard, small dogs and children, etc.. it had a couple old planks over the opening so in reality it was a bit dangerous but we don't have kids so i let it go for a while before taking care of it.. i have another one but the well house sits over the top of it, technically it's abondoned but the door is locked and it has concrete cap on it.. next summer i'll remodel the well house, insulate, roof, and have the old one filled with concrete..

 

[sandman2234]

We had a hand dug well that overflowed in the pasture at Daddy's. I have hauled a many pair of 5 gallon buckets of water from that well to the house while working on Daddy's well/pump. It had gotten filled in over time, so we dug it out. Many years later Daddy had a cow fall into it, and so he filled it again. Then a drought came, and he needed the water, so he dug it back out. Lost another cow, so he filled it again, but placed a pipe in it prior to filling it, so now the pipe flows water and the cows can't fall in.
Wells are a lot of trouble, no doubt!!
Glad the girl is ok!
David from jax

 

[Egon]

Glad to hear the girl is okay.

Just recently we were looking at some property for sale on the coast. I discovered an open well about 12 feet deep back in the bush.

Here it is illegal to have an open well.

 

[hitekcountry]

I have a hand dug well on my property and I built a cover for it that you could safely drive a loaded dump truck over.

The cover that was on it before looked solid but when I removed it I discovered it was badly deteriorated. Just because they look ok doesn't mean they are. You need to check them and make sure they're safe.

 

[MossRoad]

Don't forget about old septic tanks and dry wells, too. Teach your kids to stay away from concrete lids and not be tempted to jump on them. Better yet, put the lid underground a couple feet, put a wider, second lid on it, then put a flowerbed over that. Telling the kids to stay out of the flower bed works much better than telling them not to jump on something so tempting.

 

[N80]

Ugh. I've got a 35 foot deep, hand dug well on my property very near my cabin. It has worried me for years. It is a good 6-8 feet in diameter and is capped with an open cement housing. What makes this one particularly dangerous is that it is eroding all around the top. When you look down inside the cement housing you can see that it and the cement floor around the edges of it are held up on pieces of railroad rails. Then you notice that because of the erosion you are basically standing on a sort of unsuspended 'roof' of thin cement and dirt. Gives you a bit of a chill and an immediate urge to step back! The ends of the supporting rails are barely holding.

Sometimes it has water in it and sometimes it is dry. Strange thing is that it has water in it now, during one of our worst droughts ever.

But the danger is not so much in the bottom, or the water, but in this cement roof and housing. If someone fell in, it would be because all that had collapsed and the walls of this housing (which looks like a cattle cistern) are thick...so it is very heavy.

I'm not sure what to do about it. It is in the woods and I can't get to it with the tractor, not easily anyway. Plus, even if I could get the tractor up to it, I do know how close I could safely get because of all the erosion. I've thought about just trying to inch in there with the bucket and start scooping and pushing a few feet in front of the housing and maybe the whole thing will fall in. A backhoe would be ideal.

Just a dangerous situation all together. I think posting warning signs would just generate curiosity. And like I say, if you can look down into it....you're standing on that crumbling roof out over the abyss!

My B-I-L (who used to own the place) is convinced that there is Confederate treasure buried in there. He has no reason to suspect this. When it is dry, you can see the bottom with a sealed beam light....and there has never been anything in there but a dead racoon once.

He wants someone to remove the cement housing and go down in there. Well, it won't be me. Maybe we'll send one of the kids. This well might be deep enough for CO2 to be an issue for anyone down in there. But don't worry, its not going to happen.

 

[Defective]

Maybe drop a stick or two of dynamite in there with a long fuse.

Then you can fill it in without standing on the roof.