SAND SPRINGS, Okla. -- An 80-year-old Sand Springs woman was able to help rescue herself after falling into a well Tuesday morning.
Sand Springs Fire Chief Mike Wood said the department received a call around 8 a.m. Tuesday about a woman who fell into a well on West 61st Street.
After they arrived, firefighters learned the woman fell into the well while walking over a wooden well cover. After falling into the well, the woman was able to brace herself against a sidewall and hang onto a pipe.
Firefighters put a ladder into the well and the woman was able to climb out. The woman told firefighters she has walked over the well cover before, but this time it broke.
81-year-old, Carolyn Mathews, said she dropped about 20 feet and was trapped inside the well for an hour.
"I wasn't afraid of the water," Mathews said. "I'm a swimmer."
Mathews was hardly fazed by the fall.
"It's all bricked, it's beautiful inside," Mathews said. "It's bricked all the way down. How did they make that well and brick that whole well, how'd they get out?"
Mathews is thankful she did get out, thanks to one person.
"My son is a hero, my son is my anchor," Mathews said. Her son Woody Baldwin was about to leave for the day.
"Usually the last thing I do is say bye to my mom," Baldwin said.
But this time there was no response.
"I could have left 5 minutes earlier, not got home until 4:00 and look what I would have found," Baldwin said as he recalled the seriousness of the situation.
He threw his mother a rope and called 911 to bring a ladder.
"The fireman wanted to come down with it," Mathews said. "I didn't really want him in there. I was arguing with him, 'don't send him down just send the ladder.'"
Mathews said during those moments a memory from 1940 crossed her mind. She fell into Grand Lake at the age of 4, and her father rushed to her rescue.
"That childhood memory came back to me when I fell straight down in that well," Mathews said. "I don't know you figure it out, I can't figure it out."
She escaped with just bruises, and now has advice to those who might find themselves in the same situation.
"You have to have a sense of place but you have to have a sense of will and a sense of security."
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