Wedged Hiker Rescued after Six Hours

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It took six hours and a pneumatic chisel to rescue a 17-year-old hiker who became wedged between two rocks in Joshua Tree National Park recently.

A park official said the teenager was on a school field trip from the Bay Area when he went through an area that required him to squeeze his body at weird angles and got stuck, according to the Associated Press. 

“He got as far as his legs and hips out, he was a rather well built young man chest wise and got lodged in and couldn’t get out,” George Land, a park spokesman told the AP.

Mutliple agencies responded to the rescue including the local Fire Department, Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Center Fire and Rescue and the park’s search-and-rescue team.

A similar incident was depicted in the Hollywood movie 127 Hours about Aaron Ralston who sawed off his own forearm with a pocket knife in order to free himself from a boulder that dislodged in a Utah canyon.

Photo credit: Near Skull Rock in Joshua Tree National Park. Getty Images