# Morocco attempts rescue of boy in a deep well **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 5, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961 "2022-02-05T15:19:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/1 "2022-02-05T15:19:42Z")
I think this is day four of the attempted rescue of Rayan. Rescuers dropped water and oxygen to him. I’m not sure if the young child is using it. The rescue effort is staggeringly large. A huge, massive pit has been dug along side the well. They are within a meter of the child. The tricky part is digging into the well shaft. Hoping for the best possible outcome. 😟 > [@](#): > > Rayan’s father was repairing the well at the time of the accident, and has said he and Rayan’s mother were “devastated and very worried”. > > “In that one moment I took my eyes off him, the little one fell into the well. I haven’t slept a wink”, he told news site le360 on Wednesday. > > Speaking to Moroccan media with tears in her eyes, Rayan’s mother said: “The whole family went out to look for him. Then we realised that he’d fallen down the well. I’m still keeping up hope that we’ll get him out alive.” > > On Moroccan social media, the #SaveRayan has been trending across the country as thousands of people have followed updates from local media and onlookers at the scene. > **[Rayan: Moroccan rescuers inch nearer to boy stuck in well for days](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-60244091)** > > The five-year-old boy, Rayan, fell into the well while playing in the Moroccan town of Tamorot. [https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/moroccan-rescuers-get-closer-child-trapped-well-2022-02-05/](https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/moroccan-rescuers-get-closer-child-trapped-well-2022-02-05/) ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/2 "2022-02-05T16:14:32Z")
Daily Mail has published several dozen incredible pictures. My jaw drops at the amount of digging by the rescuers’ machines. The effort put into this 4 day rescue is staggering. > **[Rescue workers finally retrieve five-year-old Rayan in Morocco](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10479437/Rescue-workers-SIX-feet-five-year-old-Rayan-trapped-bottom-100ft-Morocco.html)** > > Rayan fell into a 32-metre well outside his home in Ighran, in the northern province of Chefchaouen, on Tuesday, launching a rescue operation that has at last ended. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/3 "2022-02-05T16:23:15Z")
Latest reports are not optimistic … I don’t think they’ve heard anythying since Thursday. I’ve been trying to watch proceedings live on Al-Arabiya ([here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhRKJSqnPbo)) but i don’t understand arabic. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/4 "2022-02-05T16:27:06Z")
I remember China claimed it rescued a bunch of miners. But later the families were saying the men never came home. The official state story says they were saved. The rescue in Morocco is a big event. It worries me they haven’t shown camera footage of the child drinking water and moving. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/5 "2022-02-05T16:48:35Z")
Baby Jessica fell 22 ft down the well. She could be heard crying and singing while the rescuers drilled a shaft. [Rescue of Jessica McClure - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_of_Jessica_McClure) The child in Morocco fell a 105 ft. and the rescue required digging a huge trench. They’re tunneling across now to reach the child. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/6 "2022-02-05T17:54:29Z")
I know this is probably a really dumb question, but couldn’t they find a little person of good physical health, put them in a body harness and lower them down to put a harness around the kid and pull them both up? As an adult the little person would be able to make the informed choice as to the relative danger of getting lowered down in. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/7 "2022-02-05T18:15:02Z")
Quotes from the first article "_He added that several attempts by local volunteers and rescue workers to gain access through the well’s opening have already failed._ _“The problem of this rescue is that the hole diameter is very, very small, about 25cm (9.8 inches),” Mr El Quahabi said. “At the depth of 28 metres it became smaller so we couldn’t reach him.”_" Confined space is one of the tougher rescues & we wouldn’t send someone in who wasn’t trained/certified in it so you’d need a small stature _adult_ who already is certified in confined space rescues. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/8 "2022-02-05T18:19:50Z")
Yeah, sending in a small untrained adult sounds like it would just create an additional person to rescue. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/9 "2022-02-05T18:25:09Z")
It’s not possible for anyone of any size, even the same size as the boy. At the top it’s about 18 inches wide, but it quickly narrows to about 10 inches, and then further still. ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/10 "2022-02-05T21:18:48Z")
Sadly, he died. Damn. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/11 "2022-02-05T22:01:26Z")
I tried to avoid getting too invested in this story. The rescue efforts drew me in. They tried so hard. I’m glad they worked safely and no one else got injured or killed. They were working in loose sand that wasn’t very stable. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2022, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/12 "2022-02-05T22:34:36Z")
I watched this story because of my memories of the baby Jessica story back in the late 80’s. She was rescued on a Friday. I remember that because I was working and had no access to news that afternoon. So I called the local TV station, and the lady on the phone put me on hold to find out, and came back to tell me no, she wasn’t out yet. Then she said it was good to hear from someone who cared about the kid because a couple of times news coverage had broken into programming when theythough she might just be about to come out. Both timed, when they did, angry women called in to protest the interupption of their soap operas. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGawn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@HelenGawn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGawn)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/13 "2022-02-06T04:54:12Z")
> Baby Jessica fell 22 ft down the well. She could be heard crying and **singing** … I followed the story at the time. I was concerned but not too emotional about it, until this part was reported. The song was “Winnie the Pooh,” which was my niece’s favorite at that age. I blubbered like a baby hearing her voice in my head. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/14 "2022-02-06T05:30:04Z")
14 years later, some irate soap opera fans called TV stations, locally and elsewhere, because of certain events in NYC and Washington DC that the networks decided were more important. That said, I hope they can retrieve his body, since they’re so close, and give him a proper burial. (I’m assuming his parents are probably Muslim.) Here’s an interview with Jessica McClure Morales, from 2017. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ksZMIvHNeJ0/maxresdefault.jpg "Baby Jessica: 30 Years After Being Rescued From The Well | PeopleTV") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZMIvHNeJ0) I’ve looked for any video footage of a carload of teenage girls, immediately after the rescue, and the driver squeals, “Jessica’s number one!” but I can’t find it, quite likely because said driver wanted it scrubbed LOL\> ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/morocco-attempts-rescue-of-boy-in-a-deep-well/958961/15 "2022-02-06T05:33:58Z")
In 1949, 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus fell down a well in California, and her own rescue attempt was carried on then-fledgling live television. > **[Kathy Fiscus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathy_Fiscus)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Kathryn Anne Fiscus (August 21, 1945 – April 8, 1949) was a three-year-old girl who died after falling into a well in San Marino, California. The attempted rescue, broadcast live on KTLA, was a landmark event in American television history. > On the afternoon of April 8, 1949, Kathy was playing with her nine-year-old sister, Barbara, and cousin, Gus, in a field in San Marino when she fell down the 14-inch-wide (36 cm) shaft of an abandoned water we...