He tumbled into a manhole. For days, no one heard his cries for help, firefighters say

It sounds a lot less glamorous than Alice’s fall into a subterranean Wonderland.

A Houston, Texas man was rescued on Monday morning from a manhole after construction workers heard cries for help at 3 a.m., days after he had fallen 15 feet into the sewer system, according to KTRK.

The man, who has not been identified, told authorities he was was trapped in the sewer system six days, but then told them that it had been at least since Friday, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The crew that heard him screaming for help had been working on a road project nearby, KTRK reports. They tossed him Cheetos and some water — he’d had nothing to eat or drink — while waiting for firefighters to arrive.

There were several missing manhole covers in the areas, according to KHOU, and tall grass in the area may have made them difficult to spot. Public works officials told KPRC that Hurricane Harvey and the catastrophic flooding it unleashed in Houston may have have caused the manhole cover to come loose in the field where the man was found.

Right after Harvey dumped a historic 50 inches of rain on the Houston area in a matter of days, emergency responders warned about missing manhole covers.

“The immediate concern is that somebody’s going to be walking and step on something, or not step on something — for instance if there’s a manhole cover missing,” Houston EMS medical director Dr. David Persse told CBS in August.

When the fire department arrived early Monday morning, they set up a tripod and sent firefighters down with a ladder. Then they used a harness to pull the man back up because he had an injured foot, video posted by KPRC shows.

“He was in good mental health for the amount of time he said he was down there,” firefighter Jason Abeldano, who went down into the manhole, told KTRK. “He was laughing and joking.”

Firefighters worked for an hour to get him out, the Chronicle reports.

He was taken to a hospital to be treated for pain in his foot, but he did not appear to be severely injured, according to KPRC.

“That was his main complaint,” Abeldano told KTRK. “He said, ‘What am I going to do with my leg on the way up?’ ”

The man was about 40, according to KTRK. The Chronicle reports that the man was homeless and had been living under a nearby bridge.

This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 4:16 PM with the headline "He tumbled into a manhole. For days, no one heard his cries for help, firefighters say."