Remember Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours? In the 2011 flick based on real-life climber Aron Rolston, a 127-hour rescue operation helped save a mountain climber (played by James Franco) trapped under a rock while canyoneering.
In a similar fashion, a 32-year-old man in Telangana was rescued on Thursday, 15 December, in the Kamareddy district after he was stuck between rocks for more than 43 hours.
The survivor was rescued through the controlled-blast technique.
“We first used earthmovers to move the rocks as big as 15-20 feet. But it was not enough, so the controlled-blast technique had to be used,” Ramareddy sub-inspector Sattu Anil told South First.
The survivor, identified as Chada Raju, had been trapped between the rocks since Tuesday evening.
Controlled-blast technique
As the name indicates, the controlled-blast technique is used to reduce the amount of overbreak ground as well as control its vibrations.
Commonly used in mining, construction, and tunnelling industries, this technique involves explosives that are used to break the rocks.
“Seven controlled blasts were carried out to create a gap. It was ensured that their impact remained minimal so that rocks did not fall on Raju,” Anil said.
As recently as this year, the technique was used to break over a tonne of rock at a landslide site in a stone quarry at Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu.
Following the eight-day rescue operation, only two men could make it while four others died, one of them on the way to the hospital.
The controlled-blast technique is implemented in three ways — drilling, wall-blasting, and pre-splitting — to provide stability.
Hunting trip went wrong
While Ralston was a thorough adventurer who continue without an arm — the one he had to chop off on his own to get out of the 127-hour ordeal that formed the crux of the Danny Boyle film — even after his rescue, Reddypet-resident Raju went with his friends for hunting at Singarayapalli Puligutta in the Ghanpur forest area.
The cops said that his mobile phone slipped from his hands and fell into a “cave-like opening” in the rocks.
“In an attempt to retrieve his phone, he entered the opening and got trapped between two rocks,” SHO Machareddy Srinivas Reddy told South First.
“The police were formed on Wednesday morning by his family after they searched for him when he did not return home and his phone was switched off,” he added.
The SHO said the rescue operation went on for almost 24 hours, beginning at 4 pm on Wednesday and ending around 3.30 pm on Thursday.
The rescue team comprised officials from the forest, police, fire, health, and revenue departments.
Minor injuries
Raju was regularly supplied oxygen water, food, and ORS by his family and the rescue teams while he was trapped between the rocks.
“He was shifted to Kamareddy government hospital as soon as he was rescued,” said Reddy.
“He sustained minor injuries on his hands. But he did not suffer any fracture,” he added.
