Man rescued after getting trapped between rocks on Torrevieja seafront
Firefighters needed a truck with a crane to free the man from underneath boulders that make up the breakwater
A 35-year-old man got stuck between the large rocks around the areas known as the natural swimming pools by the seafront promenade in Torrevieja town centre on Friday.
It seems that he fell, according to the Alicante provincial fire brigade, who were called in to extract him in this busy area that is teeming with tourists in the summer.
The rocks were installed as a breakwater so that these shallow pools of calm water could be created at the edge of the sea in 1999.
The man, who was reportedly Belgian, had slipped underneath one of the rocks and got himself trapped in a crack between them.
The fire brigade were alerted at 10.10am and mobilised three units, a command vehicle, a heavy urban fire engine and a ladder truck, with a sergeant, a corporal and six fire fighters from the fire station in Torrevieja.
They had to use machinery to split the rock that was on top of him, and the local police and town hall arranged for a truck with a crane on it from the street cleaning concessionary company, Acciona, to lift it up and “give the trapped man a way out”.
This proved decisive as the alternative would have been to try and move the rocks with hydraulic equipment, but this would have posed even greater danger to the man and to the firefighters themselves.
The rescue took a total of about two and a half hours, all in front of the worried gaze of many onlookers.
Once he had been extracted, the man was taken to Torrevieja hospital in an emergency medical team ambulance (SAMU), but fortunately he had not suffered any serious injuries and only had to be treated for bruising.
Municipal sources indicated later that apparently the man had fallen while he was trying to pick up a bottle he had seen between the rocks.
It is prohibited to walk on the rocks that act as a breakwater around the natural pools, but lifeguards nevertheless have to tell people to get down and warn them about the danger on a daily basis.
Images: Consorcio de Bomberos de Alicante - Facebook
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