Man badly injured after falling in well

Michael Apap, 60, of Swatar was hoisted out of a Għargħur well bound to a basket stretcher, transfixed as the rain poured and camera lights illuminated his blue eyes.

The police said he was in critical condition.

Mr Apap was rescued at 6.40 p.m. About two hours earlier, Mr Apap had called his daughter Michelle from his mobile to tell her he had fallen down an empty well and needed help. The police said he fell the height of about a storey and a half.

“I asked him whether he fell in the water but the line started crackling at that point. I then went down to call from my neighbours downstairs as I could not remember the emergency number at that point,” his daughter recounted.

Mr Apap, a former shipyards worker, was out walking his dog Kimba, a tawny Labrador mongrel, who needed some exercise after being cooped up inside on Tuesday because of the weather.

“He likes to go to remote places to walk the dog,” his wife Mary said as the lengthy rescue operation was underway. “I told him to make sure he took the dog out today because yesterday the weather was bad”.

It took rescuers and his family some time before they located the accident site.

“He was giving us directions on his mobile and even then it took us a while to find him because the well was covered with an old refrigerator that concealed the opening,” the Civil Protection Department Xemxija station officer Natalino Bezzina, who led the rescue operation, said.

Ms Apap said probably he had ventured into the field after the dog had wandered there.

“They said there were rabbits in the area, so the dog might have chased them,” Ms Apap said. Sure enough, two white rabbits were spotted crouching around five metres away from the well’s mouth.

The rescue was not straightforward, according to the rescuers.

“It was risky because there were a lot of broken beams over the well. Usually we would have used a tripod but the beams were too dangerous. In fact, one of the beams fell during the rescue,” Mr Bezzina said, adding all precautions had to be taken.

Two CPD rescuers, including Mr Bezzina, and emergency nurse Rita Schembri, went down the well to administer first aid to Mr Apap. He was then immobilised and put into a bucket stretcher.

Mr Bezzina said the man could not move and that he had hurt his back and broken one of his arms. Mr Apap underwent a back operation some time ago, according to his wife.

As darkness started falling and it rained lightly, a litany of cries of “ajjut” (help) reverberated out of the shaft. The cries for help continued even when Mr Apap was in the ambulance and his daughter and the nurse tried to reassure him that his dog was well. He complained he was bound too tight to the stretcher but was told that was necessary.

He was taken to Mater Dei Hospital and placed in intensive care.

“He was very lucky to have had a mobile phone on him and that he was conscious. Had he become unconscious we would only have found him after he was dead,” Mr Bezzina said.

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of places that are in this dangerous condition. It’s very important that people seal such shafts to prevent accidents like these,” he added.