First responders recently used a rope and a small PVC pipe to rescue a 14-month-old boy named Bentley who fell into a pipe while he was in the yard with his mom at home Sunday in Moundridge, Kansas.
The boy named Bentley fell upright about 10 feet deep inside the vertical 12-inch-wide PVC pipe — which had a faulty cover that Officer Ronnie Wagner said turned the useless hole into a “booby trap.”
Body cam video shows Moundridge Wagner, a Kansas Army National Guard veteran, creating “a quick catch pole” after asking Jeremy Samland, an EMS who lived nearby to bring over a 16-foot-long pipe.
Wagner, who had experience with the Harvey County Emergency Response Team, asked fire rescue for rope, threaded it through the pipe, and tied a circle lasso to be placed under Bentley’s shoulders.
Bentley cried hysterically. After fire rescue personnel used the makeshift tool to get Bentley out, Wagner, a father, got praise from colleagues for his quick thinking.
After telling a first responder that he had used the same method after a raccoon broke into a neighbor’s home, and caused havoc, Wagner walked to his assigned Chevrolet Tahoe but didn’t leave.
Wagner walked to the ambulance. The boy was alert and conscious in his mother’s arms. Paramedics determined that except for some scratches and emotional trauma, Bentley was not injured.
A Moundridge Police Department spokesperson released a statement on Tuesday describing Wagner’s strategy as a “creative solution” that was “swift and effective.” The department had just introduced Wagner as a new hire on July 9.
Video shows Wagner at work (Expletive)