Published on March 7th, 2012 | by Steven Hodson
0Trapped 3-Year-Old Boy Rescued From Crevice By Irish Climber
It was just like any other day when the Högberg family decided to do some hiking in a nature spot near Kristianstad in southern Sweden when everything went wrong.
Without any warning 3-year-old Leo found himself falling into a crack in the rock where he became seriously stuck. The crack was only wide enough for a young boy of Leo’s size to fall through which made it next to impossible for the bigger adults to climb down and rescue him.
For the next five hours Leo’s parents and a team of rescuers from the emergency services did everything they could to free the terrified little boy. At one point they managed to get the young boy to grab a hold of the rope that they had been sending down to him but when they tried to pull him up Leo’s head became stuck and he let go of the rope.
At about this point it was approaching evening and the temperatures were dropping when climber David Crowley, who is originally from Ireland but now resides in Malmö, suggested that the rescuers hold on to his legs and let him dangle upside down in order to reach the child.
“I am pretty slim and could get down headfirst while the emergency services staff held my ankles,” Crawley said.
The experienced climber was able to use a hook to pull the boy by his clothing so that he could grab hold of his hand and bring a happy end to a nightmare day for the Högberg family. “We are so terribly grateful for the fantastic input of the emergency services and the climber who helped us,” Henrik Högberg said, after his son had been placed into his arms shortly before 4pm, ending a five and half hour ordeal.