Woman plunges into abandoned well north of Edmonton
Trapped at the bottom of an abandoned well, murky water up to her knees, Trieva McBeth wondered if she was going to die.
"I alternated between thinking someone's got to drive by and hear me sometime, and being resigned to the fact I might be there three, four, five days or something," McBeth said, her voice hoarse from hours spent yelling for help.
"And between thinking, I'm going to die here, and no one's going to find me."
Her ordeal began on Monday at around 1 p.m. She was driving down Range Road 222 near Highway 643, outside Redwater, about an hour north of Edmonton. She had just taken her bull terrier, Loki, for a walk and was on her way home when she had to stop for a bathroom break.
"Normally, I wouldn't go onto someone's property, even though there's no house there," she said. "But I wanted a little bit of shelter from the road in case someone drove by."
On the way back to the car, with Loki running ahead through the long grass, McBeth took a step and felt like the ground dissolved from under her.
She plunged several feet into a cold, dark hole.
Her car was parked well off to the side of the road behind a hedge, her cellphone still inside.
The closest farm was a country block away. Few cars were driving by. No one knew where she was, except for Loki, peering down nervously from the concrete ledge above.
McBeth hates water. She didn't learn to swim until well into her teens. Her dog hates water even more, and he can't swim at all.
"I had to get mad at him to make him go away, because I was afraid that he was going to fall in, too," she said.
Alone at the bottom of the well, McBeth fumbled to get her footing. Everything was slimy, the walls, the piece of floating wood she used as a stool to try to reach the lip. She thinks it was probably the lid, which had rotted and fallen in.
McBeth tried several times to pull herself out.
"Any time I'd get closer to the top, I'd scream," she said.
"I'd get up to the point where I'd have my elbows on the ground, and I couldn't get leverage or purchase with my slippery shoes, and I'd just fall back down."
She found a foothold in a crack in the concrete, and with her hands felt around in the grass for something to grab on to. She settled on a chunk of cement with nails protruding in various directions. It was attached to the well by a piece of rusty rebar.
"I was worried if I pulled on it too hard, if I'd pull this chunk of cement with rusty nails down on top of my head," she said.
She tried without success to climb out using a strand of nylon rope dangling down the wall.
Nearly four hours passed. She was shivering in her T-shirt and yoga pants, her breath fogging the cold air.
"I thought about my family, my dog, everyone I know," she said, her voice cracking. "I thought about dying down there.
"I finally decided I had to risk pulling that rope off the concrete, or pulling it onto my own head. No one was going to hear me."
It was about 4:45 p.m. when she finally pulled herself up and out. Dripping wet, dirty, covered in scrapes, she limped back to her car.
McBeth wishes there had been a sign on the property to warn about the well.
After she got her wounds bandaged at the hospital and a tetanus shot, she's home recovering, with a sprained ankle and 10 days on antibiotics.
Loki hasn't left her side.
"Any time I even get up to go to the washroom," she said, "I come out and he's leaning against the door."
roberta.bell@cbc.ca
elizabeth.hames@cbc.ca
