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Romanian girl trapped in a drainage pipe

1.2K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  stoica-4-ever  
#1 ·
I know this is not about sports, but it is a fantastic story!

This was unbelievable! It was shown all over the world. BBC, CNN, ABC, CBC, etc (and in Toronto - CTV, CityTV and Global) all showed the little girl's rescue.
The skinny teenager that was lowered into the drainage pipe was hailed as the hero. I can't believe she fit through that minuscule space!
At the end when they showed the father holding the baby and crying, almost made me burst in tears!

Unbelievable! Way to go! All the people involved in the rescue should be praised!
 
#2 ·
Marius said:
I know this is not about sports, but it is a fantastic story!

This was unbelievable! It was shown all over the world. BBC, CNN, ABC, CBC, etc (and in Toronto - CTV, CityTV and Global) all showed the little girl's rescue.
The skinny teenager that was lowered into the drainage pipe was hailed as the hero. I can't believe she fit through that minuscule space!
At the end when they showed the father holding the baby and crying, almost made me burst in tears!

Unbelievable! Way to go! All the people involved in the rescue should be praised!
tell us more about it
 
#3 ·
The story goes like this:

Alina, a 2 old girl from a village near Bucharest fell through a water pipe ('put') of 30 cm width and more than 11 metres depth dug in front of her house. In fact, she fell while sitting (I suppose) on the water bucket that was in the mouth of the pipe and she fell with the bucket, at 11 metres deep at first! The parents heard her screaming, called the ambulance and together hauled the bucket until 6 metres deep, where the girl got stuck because her leg was crushed between the bucket and the concrete pipe! The girl was crying all the time, of course, and more people appeared: neighbours with shovels, but also firemen, who were teenagers during their compulsory army service and didn't know what to do. In the end, the Romanian Secret Service (SRI)!!! sent some men and they also received help from some diggers around, two small excavators and later a bigger one from Bucharest City Hall. I think 6 hours have passed until all this 'army' gathered and things got organized. At first they thought of digging parallel with the pipe and then making a lateral hole, but it was too difficult, I suppose, so they thought to dismantle the pipe, which was made of 1 metre long bits. They dug around the pipe, with shovels and then with these excavators, and extracted two bits of pipe, so the girl was now only 3 or 4 metres away. She could still be heard, the firemen had tried to send her a bottle of water, but she didn't know how to catch it, then they had tried to lower through the hole a boy, but he came back quickly, frightened of the dark.

The happy end of the story, the one that was shown on all TVs, came when, after extracting the two bits of tube, a slim and shorty (1.60, maybe) girl appeared. We were watching it live on the main Romanian TV stations (but not the public one, I'm afraid!). The girl, Oana, thought at first to be a stuntwoman, was tied with two cords and lowered head down through the pipe. At first they hauled her back, after a minute or two, and we thought that nothing could be done. But then we saw how they tied her back, lowered her again, longer this time, hauled her back and... here it was, the little girl was in her arms! It was one of the most exciting moments we ever experienced! Later we found out that the saviour is 18 years old, not a stuntwoman at all, but a poor, fatherless girl from a neighbouring village who saw everything on TV, made a rehearsal in her own yard, since she had a similar pipe, and then came and volunteered herself. She even has a severe kidney problem and now, of course, she's a national hero - the city hall of her village promised her a house, people gathered about 100 million lei, a hospital promised to fix her kidneys and so on. She deserves all this fully, indeed, and it's a good sign to see all over the world that Romanians are decent and resourceful people after all, isn't it?

The little girl is ok now, although still in a state of shock after spending 8 (eight) hours in dark and cold!
 
#5 ·
Oh my God!! :eek: Good that there is internet..this way I can find out what is going on in this country (although I live in it :D ), but since I am a student I get tv with only one channel...and don't even have time to watch that one :(

My dear God...I have heard a story like that before...I am so happy that it turned out great in the end :proud: And so much an 18 year old girl could do...and grown up people were so out of ideas and means..this is incredible :eek: But it is wounderful to know that people care for eachother :)
 
#10 ·
David said:
Cristina,
this was live on TV on 3-4 channels. The happening - they showed live when the 2 yo girl was saved! ;)
WOW :eek:...and me, seems like I live at the end of the world, with no tv, no nothing...ehhh...tvr1 :D...but that didn't show it, as I heard :confused:...and I think it is exactly the one that should have showed it, since it is the only channel to go throughout all of Romania :irritate:
 
#14 ·
EclipsE said:
Stoica,

U didn't see this on your local or national news? It was all over the place here in Canada as well, and it's rare that we see any Romanian news on Canadian tv.
I am not really a television-guy ... might have beeen on the news ... Belgian news ... I am not Canadian or so ... just a simple Belgian ! :happy: