A 71-year-old man died after falling into a hole about 40 meters deep that he dug in his kitchen after he dreamed that there was gold in the basement of his home in Minas Gerais, Brazil.
According to several Brazilian media reports, João Pimenta da Silva received a “revelation” and began digging a tunnel in this room of a residential building in the Betania area of the city of Ipatinga in the Rio Doce Valley. Six months later, the hole was approximately 90 centimeters in diameter and 40 meters deep. On Thursday, while leaving the hole, he lost his balance on a wooden structure and fell. Firefighters arrived on the scene and recovered the body of a man with multiple fractures and a serious head injury.
The friend said he was near the fatal victim at the time of the incident. “I was working here, and he came to me asking me to help pull the water out of the hole. It was approximately waist-high. We lowered the pump and removed two 18 liter buckets. He decided to remove the pump for storage. I told him to let him go because it was raining, it seemed like something was trying to get me to stop him. So we installed the elevator again and it went down halfway down the shaft, then it decided to come back. As he reached the top, the swing began to slide and he was left pinned in the rope by his hand. I tried to hold him, alone, there was no way to call for help. But if I had held on, I would have gone with him. I only heard noise,” said Antonio Wilson Costa, as quoted by the G1 news site.
Already Fire chief Leonardo Shin said the excavation was illegal: “There are legal processes whereby a person must obtain permission from environmental agencies. And there is the whole issue of equipment and taxes that a person has to pay. He took a very big risk and unfortunately became a victim. Because he was involved in activities at height, protective equipment was required. During excavations there is a risk, the earth may fall and a person may be buried.”
Author: Manuel Jorge Bento
Source: CM Jornal
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