Toddler ‘Real Well’ After a Night Trapped in Hole

A toddler trapped for 14 hours in a shaft dug for a construction project busied himself making mud balls and listening to his mother sing nursery songs before rescuers reached him at dawn Sunday.

“It was really difficult. I could hear him crying, but I couldn’t touch him and I couldn’t help him,” Lisa Davis, mother of 20-month-old Kevin, told reporters as she fought back tears.

The rescue workers cheered when the boy was brought to the surface shortly after 6 a.m. Sunday.

“When he clinched my fingers, I felt a tingle in my heart,” said firefighter Joe Cipri, who pulled him out. “It’s still there.”

Kevin was taken to Denver General Hospital, where he was treated for mild hypothermia, dehydration and scrapes on his elbows.

About eight hours later, he was sent home, wearing a T-shirt and shorts and no visible bandage or other sign of his ordeal.

Dr. Michael Murray, the emergency room physician who treated Kevin, said the toddler was given food and fluids to counteract dehydration.

“I don’t anticipate any psychological problems down the road. He came through this real well,” Murray said.

It all started at about 4 p.m. Saturday, when Kevin fell into a hole, 18 inches wide and 12 feet deep, that was dug for a remodeling project.

Firefighters worked through the night to keep the boy warm and dry. They pumped oxygen into the hole and used lights to keep the temperature at about 70 degrees.

His mother said that Kevin kept himself amused by rolling mud into balls with his fingers and spinning himself around in the hole.

Rescue workers first dug a vertical shaft, then delicately tunneled through the five feet of earth to where Kevin was.

Tom Davis, the boy’s father, said he did not have a permit to dig.