A worker who passed out while climbing a communications tower dangled nearly 500 feet above the ground on a rope for two hours before he was rescued.
Alan Cook, 45, of Decatur, Ill., was climbing the 625-foot tower in northwestern Vigo County on Tuesday for a job to add an antenna when he passed out about 475 feet up.
Using a cell phone, co-worker Mike Norman called 911 about 1 p.m. to get help for Cook, who was dangling from a rope attached to a safety harness.
As firefighters gathered far below, Cook, an employee of Midstate Telecom Corp. of Decatur, Ill., drifted in and out of consciousness in the 20-degree temperatures.
A firefighter climbed the tower and tethered Cook to a rope system and tried to lower him to the top of a 90-foot ladder, but Cook panicked and grabbed the tower.
After Cook kept trying to climb down himself on the tower’s ladder, Norman had to repeatedly move the rope so that his incoherent co-worker could not grab the steel tower.
With Norman alongside Cook and firefighter Hidekatsu Kajitami clinging to the inside of the tower, Cook eventually made the descent on the rope.
About 3:10 p.m., he reached the bucket at the top of the ladder, and firefighters lowered him to the ground.
Cook was taken to Union Hospital in Terre Haute. A hospital official said today he was no longer a patient there.