A Manitoba woman stepped out of her friend’s car outside her Winnipeg home and plunged up to her arms into a hole in the ground.
Christine Keilback, 58, said her friends, Lynda and Jeff Regan, were dropping her off outside her home in the Wolseley area on Saturday evening when she abruptly vanished from their sight.
“When they came around, it was quite surprising to find my head and shoulders just above the ground. The ground had just given away very fast. I have no recollection of the fall. It just happened very quickly,” Keilback told CBC News.
She soon discovered she was unable to climb out.
Keilback had one of her friends take photos while she waited for the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s technical rescue task force to arrive.
“It was kind of funny. I was waving to people. I mean, what a stupid situation to find yourself in,” she told the Winnipeg Free Press.
The rescuers helped Keilback don a harness, which was then attached to a winch to hoist her out of the hole.
Keilback, who was not injured, initially thought she had plunged into a sinkhole, but city officials said it was actually a catchbasin missing its manhole cover. They discovered another catchbasin on the other side of the road was also missing its cover.
Keilback said she was glad to hear both holes have now been secured.
“I mow the lawn there,” she said of the second hole. “I mean, it could have happened [again]. Wouldn’t that have been something?”
