A four-year-old boy fell in a 150-feet deep borewell in Bihar's Nalanda district on Sunday.

He was rescued in a massive and swift rescue operation mounted by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) in assistance with the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and the local district administration.

The boy, Shivam Manjhi, was conscious when he was pulled out by NDRF personnel from the borewell and rushed in an ambulance to Bhagwan Mahavir Institute of Medical Sciences at Pawapuri in the district, where a team of doctors was waiting for him with all medical assistance that could be needed in such a case. He was reported to be in stable condition.

Shivam had accompanied his mother Renu Devi when she went out to work at a farm in his native Kulfatehpur village under the Nalanda police station area at 9am. The field had a borewell hidden under palm leaves and he fell into it while playing around.

Luckily, instead of dropping all the way down to the bottom of the hole that had a diameter of 18 inches, the boy was trapped at the depth of around 50 feet. The lower half of his body was in the water that had accumulated in the hole during the rainy season.

Meanwhile, Renu ran back home and informed her husband Doman Manjhi about the mishap. The family and other villagers rushed to the place of occurrence, while somebody informed the local administration. A rescue operation was underway by 11am.

Oxygen was supplied to the kid with the help of a pipe and drinking water was also provided to ensure that he remained hydrated. The NDRF personnel also dangled a CCTV camera and a victim-locating camera to keep a watch on the child.

“Every borewell throws a unique challenge and we do our best to improvise and deal with it. In this case, we had established communication with the child with the help of cameras and his parents. Our intention was to finish the operation by dusk because any operation becomes difficult at night,” NDRF 9th battalion commandant Suneel Kumar Singh told The Telegraph.

A 25-member team of the NDRF led by its two officers was working continuously on the site. The SDRF and the district administration were providing all the help they needed. Singh had asked the district administration officials to start digging a pit near the borewell so that it could be used as the last resort to rescue Shivam.

“We first threw in a rope with the hope that the boy would catch it and we would pull him up, but it failed. Next, we used a bag attached to a rope, but he did not climb into it. An umbrella-like device also did not work. We then improvised a handle fixed in a rope, dangled it down to trap his legs and pulled him out. The boy is alive,” Singh added while narrating the successful rescue operation.