&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Man stuck inside 130ft-high signboard for 6 hours started sending goodbye messages to family")
An electrician got stuck inside a stop sign 130 feet in the air for six hours after the telescopic boom lift stopped working. The incident happened in Wilmington, Illinois, in July. AJ Gow started to lose hope of getting down and has now revealed that he sent goodbye messages to his family. Talking to WABC News, he said that it started getting extremely hot inside the sign. He told his fellow worker to get him down somehow, but the rescue proved more difficult than he had anticipated.
Gow said that it was an extremely hot day and the wind wasn't blowing either. So he sent his co-worker down to get some water and a battery-powered fan. However, when he tried to ascend again, the lift did not work. His colleague tried fixing the list but nothing worked. Gow said it was 2 pm, with the temperature touching 30 degrees Celsius. With “temperatures inside the sign rising and four hours without water, he started to become concerned.”
AJ Gow started saying goodbye to his family
He said now he was genuinely scared and didn't know what would happen. He started freaking out and sent goodbye messages to his family. "God forbid if something were to actually happen — it was my final words. So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye," he told the outlet.
The local fire department reached the scene to rescue him, but there was another problem. While the sign was 130 feet high, the ladder only reached a height of 100 feet. A bigger ladder lift had to be brought in from Joliet, a city nearly 28 kilometres away. It was huge, and police had to escort it to the site. The entire process meant Gow had to spend more time inside the sign.
The terrifying and arduous ordeal ended in a safe rescue for Gow. Deputy chief for Wilmington Fire, Todd Friddle, told People, "Although unconventional means were used to effect the rescue due to circumstances, everyone went home safe and uninjured yesterday." Gow has resumed work but now stays in the lift bucket at all times.
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