An 11-year-old boy who almost died after being sucked down a drain and under a road in flooded Melbourne has recounted the horror.
Jake Gilbert was cycling with a friend in Altona Meadows, 10 miles from central Melbourne, last week when he accidentally rode across a submerged drain, and was sucked 10 metres underneath a road.
After being sucked under, luckily, his helmet caught on a metal grate which meant he was able to grab on to part of it, while a passer-by and an off-duty emergency services member rushed to help him.
“[The water] was pulling me along, I was thinking sort of like ‘am I going to die?’,” he told Ten News from his hospital bed.
The young boy emerged with hypothermia, grazes, bruises, and a horrifying story to share in school.
“I remember grabbing onto the ledge ... I tried to take a breath but I couldn’t because my head was still underwater so I breathed in a bit of water and then I basically got sucked through the tunnel, under the road and ended up in the grate", he told 7 News Australia.
During the rescue, Constable Peter Ivory said Mr Gilbert constantly asked how much longer he would have to be stuck for.
Mr Ivory said the first thing he noticed was his fingers holding on for dear life and how he had managed to find a little pocket in the drain to breathe out of.
He said the force of the water was extraordinary.
Mr Gilbert and his family were reunited with the rescuers, who kindly gifted him with a donated bike and helmet after his own were damaged in the horrific ordeal.
He told the rescuers he loved them before asking about his missing shoes.
The boy’s father, Tony Gilbert told local news station how lucky they felt that the off-duty emergency worker happened to be walking past.
He said: “We certainly were lucky to have the right people there at the right time. We didn’t have any time to spare. The first 48 hours I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t sleep, to think we nearly lost our son. Life is too precious and too fragile, and to have a second chance like this is just extraordinary.”
Thousands of people in southeastern Australia were told to leave their homes with intense flooding.
The state of Victoria is usually spared serious floods, but Margaret Cook of the University of the Sunshine Coast said to Al Jazeera that September was wetter and cooler than usual, “which meant the ground was already saturated in many areas. Colder weather means less water evaporates.
