Patient spent the night in the dark hole forty feet deep crevice.
The story goes like this... At about 2:00 a.m. on March 30, 2004, the patient was running away from a group of people chasing him and thought he was jumping over a wall onto another building... Upon landing at the bottom of the void he suffered, apparent bi-lateral ankle fractures, and had a deep gash to the front of his left leg just above his ankle. The patient had removed his tee-shirt to cover the wound and held it in place with his belt. At about 7:45 in the morning employees arriving for work heard his calls for help and called 911.
Rescue Squad, Charleston Fire Department and EMS responded to find the patient waiting for help at the bottom of the void, about 40 feet down. Rescue Squad members with assistance from Charleston Fire Fighters rigged two repel lines to drop rescuers on each end of the patient. Two Rescue Squad members, Kenny Mercer and Shawn Jones, applied ankle splints and a K.E.D. to immobilize the patient. A Stokes Basket was then lowered into the void and once it was determined that it was narrow enough. It was then determined that it was going to be very difficult at best to get the patient with two possible broken ankles into the stokes. So it was requested that Capt. O'Donald from City of Charleston Fire also repel down and assist. The Patient was then secured into the basket in a way that would not allow any movement down in the basket once it when vertical. The patient was lashed in and then the K.E.D. was secured at the head of the basket, further preventing him from moving and putting pressure on his ankles.
Other members of Rescue and Charleston Fire Department rigged a Z-drag to raise the patient in a stokes basket. A safety line was also in place as the basket was raised. Once on the parking garage deck the same haul line was used to recover the three rescuers in the void.
