(SANTA ROSA, Calif.) — A man is lucky to be alive after he was rescued from being stuck for two days inside farm equipment at a California vineyard.
The incident occurred in the early morning on June 8 when the Sonoma Sheriff’s Office in Santa Rosa, California — about 60 miles north of San Francisco — received a complaint of a suspicious vehicle parked at a private property.
When deputies responded to the scene they were able to locate the car but noticed that the vehicle was parked in a location that didn’t make any sense as well as a hat that was located on a piece of nearby farm equipment, according to the Sonoma Sheriff’s Office.
But when authorities went over to investigate they were astounded by what they found.
“The occupant of the vehicle had, inexplicably, decided to climb into the shaft of the vineyard fan and became completely stuck inside the shaft,” Sonoma Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. “He had been stuck there for two days before we found him.”
The fire department was dispatched to the bizarre scene and they were able to extricate the man from the farm equipment. But when authorities interviewed the man and asked why he was in there in the first place, he informed them that he liked to take pictures of the engines of old farm equipment.
However, Sonoma Sheriff’s Office sounded like they didn’t quite buy the man’s reasoning.
“After a thorough investigation which revealed the farm equipment wasn’t antique and the man had far more methamphetamine than camera equipment, the motivation to climb into the fan shaft remains a total mystery,” said Sonoma Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities decided not to arrest the man after they freed him from the equipment but said that the Sheriff’s Office will be recommending charges of trespassing and drug possession, as well as violations of an outstanding probation case and a pending case for which he is currently out of custody on pre-trial release.
Police say that the man required medical treatment for his unintended multi-day stay inside the fan shaft.
“Lucky for this guy the citizen called in to report his vehicle, otherwise this story ends with a far more tragic outcome,” authorities said in their statement. “Instead he should make a full recovery and hopefully be wiser for the experience.”
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