It reminds me of a farm family I read about 40 years ago. There were rattlers down the well, so they hooked up a hose to the tail pipe of the pickup to asphyxiate them. First one down was the son; he didn’t come back up. His father went down to help him; last one down was grandpa; all dead ,no, not by snake bite.
This type of catastrophe happened just a few years back in Rockingham Co, VA. Whole family (I think it was 5 total) but the little girl died in the early morning around sunup in a cattle waste lagoon that wasn’t hardly 6 feet deep with sloped sides. Each entered after the previous trying to save them from a low oxygen/asphyxiant atmosphere from no breeze and cold air.
Confined spaces are NOTHING to screw around with. If you can’t hook someone who goes down in an enclosed area/depression with a tool without entering, you need to leave them or the rescuers will be recovering 2 or more bodies.
I’ve seen videos where even the trained responders have gotten themselves killed trying to short cut/speed up a confined space rescue.
Four Family Members, Farmhand Killed by Gas Fumes in Manure Pit
Four members of a Shenandoah Valley dairy farming family and a hired hand died Monday evening after breathing methane gas fumes inside a manure pit, Rockingham County authorities said yesterday.
The deaths occurred in rapid succession, as the hired hand tried to save the farmer, who was overcome with fumes while working inside the pit, which was enclosed and poorly ventilated, authorities said. The farmer’s wife and two daughters then jumped into the 10-foot hole, where they also died from exposure to the odorless gas, a byproduct of liquefied manure.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070302136.html