The New York City Fire Department has released a recording of a 911 call that details how five children ended up in a storm drain in Staten Island. KTLA’s sister station WPIX reports.
The five boys crawled into the storm drain around 6 p.m. Tuesday and got lost in the tunnel system, according to FDNY officials. In the 911 recording, dispatchers can be heard attempting to find out where the children actually are.
“What’s the address in Staten Island?” the dispatcher says at the start of the call.
“We don’t know,” the child on the other end of the call says. “Yeah … we’re stuck in the sewer.”
In apparent disbelief, the dispatcher asked again: “You’re stuck where?”
“In the sewer,” the boy responds.
FDNY dispatchers then tried to figure out which storm drain the children entered. The boys described a cemetery and a tunnel entrance near the Staten Island Zoo and Clove Lakes Park.
“It’s like a tunnel where all the pipes are,” one of the boys tells a dispatcher.
Later on the call, sirens can be heard in the background. The dispatcher tells the boys to “scream as loud as you can” to alert the first responders above ground.
The rescue teams ultimately find the entrance the boys had used, and follow the tunnels to their location.
“We might have hands on the kids right now,” one of the first responders eventually confirms. “We have all five children removed from the sewer, and EMS is assessing them as we speak.”
All of the kids, along with one firefighter, were transported to Richmond University Medical Center. No injuries were reported, officials said.
