A New Jersey fire chief helped rescue a man who got trapped under a 200-pound rock over the weekend.
Demarest Fire Chief John McLoughlin was the first person on scene, finding the man stuck in a muddy brook and pinned under the heavy boulder.
"It was pouring rain, it was cold, he was in this cold water for probably close to an hour," said McLoughlin. "He was trapped between his kneecap and ankle, his foot was straight up and he just couldn’t move it."
The man, who the chief believes is from Florida, was with a young child who ran to get help.
"I’m told he ran out to the road and started yelling for help, and someone heard him yelling and called 911," the chief told NBC New York.
McLoughlin used an online map to show where the man was rescued, with an image from this year appearing to show the rock that trapped him. Investigators said the area is a dried up lake near a high school, and the weekend washout made conditions far worse than normal.
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"He was very upset, started to shake. I believe he went into hypothermia and shock," said McLoughlin.
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Rescuers raced against the clock and the team was eventually able to dig his foot out and free him. But their challenges didn't end there.
"Once we got him out of the water, we had another issue of getting him out of an old lake, up a dam wall and then out to the road — in pouring rain," McLoughlin recalled. "There’s a lot challenges and this is a low-frequency, high-risk type of call. We’re a volunteer department, we get 350 calls a year, mostly fires and car accidents and things...I couldn’t be prouder of the guys. The men and women who came and did what they did that day."
