Worker Spends 90 Minutes Up to Waist in Mud

Fire officials say a fuel delivery worker sank in soggy ground up to his waist and it took nearly 90 minutes to pull him back out

Fire officials say a fuel delivery worker sank in soggy ground up to his waist and it took nearly 90 minutes to pull him back out in Greenland, New Hampshire.

Greenland Deputy Fire Chief Myrick Bunker tells the Portsmouth Herald that John Hanscom was filling a propane tank Wednesday afternoon when he dropped into the heavily saturated ground. He was able to call his boss who got rescuers to the scene.

Up to 10 firefighters, using shovels and perched on plywood slabs, worked for nearly 90 minutes trying to free Hanscom from the muck that was 3 feet deep. Bunker says every time a shovel load came out, another one slithered back in.

Eventually an excavator helped speed the rescue.

Hanscom was not injured.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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