Dad looking for phone vanishes in Georgia woods. Then rescuers hear shouts from well
A father was found trapped at the bottom of a well after he went searching for his phone in the woods after dark, Georgia firefighters told news outlets.
Crews pulled the man to safety early Friday, July 26, from the well near Factory Shoals Road in Austell, WAGA reported, citing Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services.
The 42-year-old man, who wasn’t identified, vanished late Thursday while looking for a phone he lost in the area earlier that day, Lt. Steve Bennett of Cobb County Fire and Emergency Services told McClatchy News in a phone interview.
The man’s son called police around 4 a.m. Friday after his family wasn’t able to reach him, Bennett said. They last heard from him around 10 p.m. the evening prior.
Officers “saw where he had left his truck parked in the middle of the road and went around calling his name, looking of him,” Bennett recalled.
During their search, an officer heard a phone ringing and someone shouting, WANF and WAGA reported. They looked down and saw the man was trapped 50 feet underground.
“At night in the darkness, if you don’t have a good flashlight it is very easy to accidentally find a hole, fall down a slope,” Bennett told WAGA. “You know, the woods are not kind if you don’t have a flashlight.”
Crews plucked the man from the bottom of the well and carried him from the woods on a stretcher before he was taken to a hospital, WSB-TV reported.
Authorities didn’t say how the man wound up in the well or how badly he was injured.
Austell is about a 20-mile drive northwest from downtown Atlanta.
This story was originally published July 26, 2024 at 12:35 PM with the headline "Dad looking for phone vanishes in Georgia woods. Then rescuers hear shouts from well."