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Delayed rescue

WJG

The rescuers had to call in other rescuers.

When a rock wall climber slipped down a cliff face in Indian Creek, Utah, recently, his knee got wedged in a crack. His companions could not free him, so they called for rescue.

Members of the San Juan County Search and Rescue arrived and started to try to free the climber from the crack. But after several hours of trying, they gave up and called Grand County rescuers.

A helicopter was needed to drop the rescuers at the top of the cliff so they could rappel down to the stuck climber, Fox News reported.

The second group of rescuers came and finally extricated the trapped climber, ending his 12-hour ordeal. He suffered only a minor injury.

In New York City, a man didn't have to wait half a day to get out of a locked safety deposit box vault in a midtown building.

Firefighters who came to his rescue started boring a hole through the vault's 30-inch-thick reinforced concrete wall on the night of 24 October. Through the phone, police were in touch with the trapped man. They also monitored him through a security camera inside the vault at the World Diamond Tower in Manhattan.

After 10 hours of drilling, the firefighters reached the steel plate inside the wall. Boring a hole through the steel plate would have required using a torch that would have endangered the trapped man, so the rescue attempt was halted, the Associated Press reported.

All the rescuers could do was wait. The trapped man was eventually freed when the vault's door, which was controlled by a timer, opened as scheduled at 7 a.m., New York City Assistant Fire Chief John Sarrocco said, according to AP.

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