Location Boy Falls 50 Feet 1975 - Sewer Cistern Expansion

  

Boy Falls 50 Feet In Cistern 1975

Boy falls 50 feet in cistern

BY TOM SUK DES MOINES REGISTER 1975 PHOTO BY CARL VOSS

Boy falls 50 feet BY TOM SUK DES MOINES REGISTER 1975 PHOTO BY CARL VOSS

After a 50 - foot fall

Jack Quick, jr., 10 is tended by a fireman after being lifted from a 50 - foot - deep concrete storm cistern into which he had fallen.  At right is young Quick's father, Jack Quick of 519 E. Livingston Ave.  At left is an aunt, Evelyn Stoneberan.  Young Quick reportedly was watching youths ride motorcycles on the south side of the levee near S.E. fourth Street when he apparently fell into the bunker. 

A 10 year old boy survived a 50 - foot fall  down a concrete storm cistern that was lined with jagged pieces of reinforcing metal Saturday afternoon.  Jack Quick jr., the son of Jack Quick sr., of 519 E. Livingston Ave. and Colleen Quick of 207 E. Twenty fifth St., was undergoing surgery for a severely cut right leg early today at Broadlawns Polk County Hospital.  Firemen said the boys leg was cut from the ankle to the thigh by one of the numerous metal pieces lining the structure, which somehow missing it's protective grating.  The incident occurred at S.E. Forth St. and the Des Moines River at a river levee.  Young Quick was watching motorcyclist in the area when he fell into the 50 - foot pit.  Fireman Jim Klier. 40 was lowered into the pit by rope to rescue the youth.  The was about six inches of muck on the bottom of the cistern, which probably cushioned the boy's fall.  Klier said it was fortunate the boy was not slashed to death by the metal pieces as he fell.  "Lucky they didn't hit the boy's neck.  They were like knives," he said.  As Klier was being lowered into the pit, the injured called out " Don't fall on me. " Klier  said.  " That little kid had a lot of grit.  But of course he was scared.  When I got to him he said he was hurting bad and wanted to get out.  I told him not to worry, that we would get him out quick. "  The fireman put the child in a metal basket that was lowered into the cistern and was hauled to the surface by other firemen.  The basket kept getting stuck on the metal rods, which Klier said were about two to three feet apart, and he had to keep freeing it.  Authorities credited the alertness of the motorcyclists with saving the boy life by finding him quickly. The men noticed the boy, and then suddenly didn't see him on the levee any more, so they went over to investigate.

A MOMENT TO GIVE THANKS

I would like to thank Jim Klier along with all his fellow firefighters at Fire Station No.6 http://www.dmgov.org/Departments/Fire/Pages/history.aspx#h1867 and to all rescue personal that came to my rescue and saved my life on that day in 1975 a day that forever changed my life leading me to the person I am today and I want to thank Broadlawns Medical Center http://www.broadlawns.org/ for saving my life and my leg.  Also I would like to thank the DES MOINES REGISTER for reporting my story.  And last but no least to all firefighters and rescue personal past and present.  Proud American USA

Me 1976

Boy Falls 50 Feet in Cistern — October 25, 1975

My Story of Survival

On Saturday afternoon, October 25, 1975, I was 10 years old.

It was a day that began like many other days for a group of kids growing up in Des Moines, Iowa.

We were riding dirt bikes.

These weren't strangers I happened to be watching, as someone might assume from reading the newspaper article published the following morning. They were my friends.

We rode motorcycles together. We explored together. We hung out together.

And the river levees around Des Moines were our playground.

None of us could have imagined that before that afternoon was over, I would be lying at the bottom of a 50-foot-deep concrete storm cistern, badly injured, while Des Moines firefighters worked to save my life.

More than 50 years later, I am still here to tell the story.

The Levees Were Our Playground

To understand what happened that day, you have to understand a little about what it was like growing up in Des Moines during that time.

We didn't have video games, cell phones or the kind of entertainment kids have today.

We went outside.

We explored.

We rode dirt bikes.

And we had places where we gathered that became almost like our own world.

For my friends and me, one of those places was the levee and river area near downtown Des Moines.

We knew the area around the Scott Street Bridge.

We knew the Black Bridge.

We rode and explored along the levees and through the river areas, stretching out toward places such as Pioneer Brickyard and Raccoon Valley.

That entire area was familiar territory to us.

It wasn't someplace strange or frightening.

It was where we hung out.

It was where we rode our dirt bikes.

It was our playground.

Looking back as an adult, of course, I understand that there were dangers all around us that a group of kids didn't necessarily recognize.

But at 10 years old, we weren't thinking about that.

We were just kids having fun.

And on October 25, 1975, I was there with my friends doing what we had done before—spending time around the levees and riding motorcycles.

Then everything changed in an instant.

The Fall

We were in the area of S.E. Fourth Street and the Des Moines River, near the levee.

Somewhere there was a concrete storm cistern.

According to the original Des Moines Register account, the structure should have had a protective grating over its opening.

For some reason, that grating was missing.

I fell into it.

The cistern was approximately 50 feet deep.

Fifty feet is difficult to picture until you put it into perspective.

It is roughly the height of a five-story building.

And this wasn't simply an empty hole.

The inside of the concrete structure contained numerous pieces of exposed reinforcing metal.

Des Moines firefighter Jim Klier would later describe those pieces of metal in very simple but frightening words:

“They were like knives.”

Somehow, I fell approximately 50 feet through that structure.

And somehow, I survived.

My Injuries

I did not come out of the fall without serious injuries.

One of the pieces of reinforcing metal caused a devastating open wound to my right leg.

The injury extended from approximately my ankle up my leg toward my thigh.

The wound was so severe that bone was exposed.

I also suffered a cut on my side.

And I had an injury to my forehead that required stitches.

Considering what was inside that cistern and the distance I had fallen, things could have been far worse.

Firefighter Jim Klier later told the newspaper that it was fortunate one of those pieces of metal had not struck my neck.

At the bottom of the cistern was approximately six inches of muck.

The firefighters believed that the muck may have helped cushion the final impact of my fall.

I will never know exactly why I survived.

But I did.

My Friends Realized I Was Gone

This is another part of the story that I want to make clear now, more than 50 years later.

The original newspaper story referred to the young people riding motorcycles and said that authorities credited their alertness with helping save me.

That is true.

But they weren't simply some random motorcyclists who happened to be nearby.

They were my friends.

We were there together.

We rode dirt bikes together.

This was a place where we regularly hung out.

When I suddenly disappeared, they noticed.

One moment I had been there with them.

Then I wasn't.

They went to see what had happened.

That decision became one of the first links in the chain that saved my life.

Today, I understand something that I probably couldn't fully understand at 10 years old:

My friends helped save me.

If they hadn't realized something was wrong, if they had simply continued riding, or if nobody had gone over to investigate, I don't know how long I might have remained at the bottom of that cistern.

The Des Moines Fire Department Arrives

Help was called, and the Des Moines Fire Department responded.

One of the firefighters who arrived that afternoon was Jim Klier, who was 40 years old at the time.

There was no easy way to reach me.

I was approximately 50 feet below them inside a concrete structure lined with pieces of exposed reinforcing metal.

Someone was going to have to go down.

Jim Klier did.

He was attached to a rope and lowered into the cistern toward me.

Picture what that meant.

A firefighter was being lowered approximately five stories into a confined concrete shaft, maneuvering around pieces of reinforcing metal that he himself compared to knives.

And somewhere beneath him was a badly injured 10-year-old boy.

“Don't Fall on Me”

As Jim Klier was being lowered toward me, I could see him coming down.

And I called up to him:

“Don't fall on me.”

Those words were recorded in the newspaper the very next morning.

Today, when I read that sentence, there is something almost surreal about it.

I had just fallen approximately 50 feet.

My right leg had been ripped open.

I had other injuries.

I was trapped at the bottom of a deep concrete cistern.

Yet somehow I was conscious and aware enough to realize that another person was coming down toward me—and apparently I was worried that he might land on me.

Jim Klier remembered me.

He later told the newspaper:

“That little kid had a lot of grit.”

But he also said something equally important.

I was scared.

Of course I was.

I was 10 years old.

When Jim finally reached me, I told him I was hurting badly and that I wanted to get out.

He reassured me that they were going to get me out quickly.

For a frightened 10-year-old lying at the bottom of that cistern, I can only imagine what it meant to finally have another human being beside me.

I was no longer alone down there.

Getting Me Out

Reaching me was only half the rescue.

Now the firefighters had to get me approximately 50 feet back to the surface.

A metal rescue basket was lowered into the cistern.

Jim Klier placed me into it.

The firefighters above began pulling the basket upward.

But there was another problem.

Those same pieces of reinforcing metal that had surrounded me during the fall were now obstacles during the rescue.

According to Klier, the rods were approximately two to three feet apart.

As the basket was pulled upward, it repeatedly became caught on them.

Jim had to keep freeing the basket while the firefighters above continued pulling me toward the surface.

Foot by foot, they brought me up.

Eventually, after falling approximately 50 feet and then being carefully hauled back through the same dangerous shaft, I reached the top.

I was alive.

The Photograph That Froze the Moment

Des Moines Register photographer Carl Voss was there and captured a photograph shortly after firefighters brought me out.

That photograph still exists today.

In it, I am a 10-year-old boy being attended to after the rescue.

My father, Jack Quick Sr., is beside me.

My aunt is there as well.

More than 50 years later, I can look at that photograph and see a moment in my own life that otherwise would exist only in memory.

Someone looking at it today sees an old black-and-white newspaper photograph.

I see much more.

I see my father.

I see the firefighters.

I see the dirt and mud from the levee.

I see the aftermath of the place where I nearly died.

And I see myself at 10 years old.

What strikes me most today is that the little boy in that photograph had absolutely no idea what his future would hold.

He didn't know how badly his leg was injured.

He didn't know there would be two surgeries.

He didn't know there would be an unsuccessful attempt to save the damaged skin.

He didn't know about the whirlpool treatments that were coming.

He didn't know he would need a skin graft.

And he certainly couldn't have imagined that more than 50 years later he would be sitting down and telling the whole story.

But I know something today that he didn't know then.

He was going to make it.

The Story Makes the Front Page

The next morning was Sunday, October 26, 1975.

People throughout Des Moines opened their copies of the Des Moines Sunday Register.

There, on Page One, was a headline:

BOY FALLS 50 FEET IN CISTERN

The story was written by Tom Suk.

The boy in that story was me.

The article told readers that 10-year-old Jack Quick Jr. had survived a 50-foot fall into a concrete storm cistern.

It described the reinforcing metal.

It described the six inches of muck at the bottom.

It described Jim Klier being lowered by rope to reach me.

It told readers about the rescue basket repeatedly becoming caught on the metal rods.

It credited the young motorcycle riders with realizing that I had suddenly disappeared and going to investigate.

And it reported that I was undergoing surgery at Broadlawns Polk County Hospital for a severely injured right leg.

But that newspaper could only tell the story as it existed at that moment.

The rescue was over.

My recovery was just beginning.

Two Surgeries — And the Fight to Save My Right Leg

Being pulled from the cistern alive was only the first battle.

Once I arrived at Broadlawns, the doctors were faced with the serious damage to my right leg.

The reinforcing metal inside the cistern had caused a major open wound.

Bone was exposed.

The doctors performed the first of what would eventually be two surgeries.

During that first operation, they tried to save the damaged skin from the open wound.

The hope was that the skin could survive and heal.

Unfortunately, the attempt was not successful.

The damaged skin did not survive.

That left me with a serious open wound, and the doctors would have to operate again.

Waiting for the Second Surgery

Before they could perform the second operation, the wound had to be cleaned and prepared.

This was one of the most difficult parts of my recovery.

My right leg was badly swollen and infected.

The wound was still open.

Bone remained exposed.

I remember the wound oozing pus from the infection as the medical staff worked to clean it and prepare my leg for another surgery.

One of the treatments I underwent during this period was whirlpool therapy.

My injured right leg was placed directly into the whirlpool while the wound was still open, infected and draining.

There was no skin covering part of that terrible injury.

The bone could be seen.

The whirlpool treatment was used to help clean the open wound, remove drainage and contamination, and prepare the area for the surgery that would eventually cover it.

I was only 10 years old.

I had already fallen approximately 50 feet through a concrete cistern lined with reinforcing metal.

I had been trapped at the bottom.

I had been pulled back to the surface in a rescue basket.

I had undergone my first surgery.

And now I was lying in a hospital with a swollen, infected leg, an open wound oozing pus, with the bone exposed, having that leg placed into a whirlpool while doctors prepared me for another operation.

Those are things a newspaper headline could never fully describe.

By then, the dramatic rescue that had appeared on the front page was already becoming yesterday's news to everyone else.

For me, the ordeal was still happening.

The Second Surgery — A Skin Graft

The doctors eventually determined that the damaged skin from the original injury could not be saved.

They had to remove the skin and tissue that was no longer viable.

Then came my second surgery.

This time, the doctors performed a skin graft.

Skin was taken from my right thigh.

That healthy skin was then grafted over the severely damaged area of my right leg where the wound had remained open and the bone had been exposed.

The first surgery had been an attempt to save the original damaged skin.

It hadn't worked.

The infection, swelling and open wound made a second operation necessary.

The skin graft gave my leg another chance to heal.

The Firefighters Saved My Life — Broadlawns Helped Save My Leg

When I look back on October 25, 1975 today, I don't see one single rescue.

I see a chain of people and events.

My friends noticed that I had disappeared.

Someone got help.

Des Moines firefighters responded.

Jim Klier went down approximately 50 feet into that cistern to reach me.

The other firefighters pulled us back toward the surface.

Then Broadlawns took over.

Doctors operated on me once and tried to save the damaged skin.

When that didn't work, the medical team continued treating a swollen and infected open wound with exposed bone.

I went through whirlpool therapy while the wound drained and they worked to prepare my leg for another operation.

Then they operated a second time and performed a skin graft using skin from my right thigh.

The firefighters had gotten me out alive.

Now the doctors were fighting to save my right leg.

More than 50 years later, when I think about all of the people involved, I realize just how many times things could have turned out differently.

But they didn't.

I survived.

My leg was saved.

I grew up.

And today I have the privilege of telling the story myself.