Oak Bay woman rescued after being trapped under 700-lb safe overnight

Oak Bay woman rescued after being trapped under 700-lb safe overnight
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Firefighters rescued a woman who had been trapped under a safe at a home on Florence Street on July 5, 2018.

Firefighters rescued a woman who had been trapped under a safe at a home on Florence Street on July 5, 2018.

An Oak Bay woman was rescued by firefighters Thursday morning after she became trapped under a 700-pound safe overnight.

Assistant Chief Cam Thompson with the Oak Bay Fire Department said crews were called to the 2100 block Florence Street at around 11 a.m. for a report of a woman trapped under a 700 lb. (318 kilogram) safe.

“My understanding is that she had been there for about 16 hours prior to being discovered,” Thompson said.

BC Ambulance and Oak Bay Police were at the home when fire crews arrived and the woman was stabilized before firefighters extracted her. She was taken to the Royal Jubilee Hospital for treatment of “crush-type injuries” to her right leg.

“Her report to us was that she opened the door to the safe and it fell forward on top of her sometime yesterday,” Thompson said.

“She was in the basement area and obviously not able to move to access a phone, didn’t have a cellphone with her so she was just kind of at the mercy of whoever happened to come home or come visit her.”

Sgt. Mike Martin said a friend of the woman who not heard from her went over to the home and discovered the accident.

Thompson said the safe was approximately four feet (1.2 metres) tall and three feet (0.9 metres) wide. Firefighters lifted the safe just enough to rescue the woman and then left it in place.

“We stabilized it with our wood blocking and then we used our airlift bags to lift it three to four inches just to get it up high enough to slide her leg out from underneath,” Thompson said.

 

Alexa HuffmanAlexa Huffman

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