A recent operation involved rope, a team of rescue technicians and a boat.
But Omaha captains quickly pointed out it was the victim who diverted himself to the team to be saved from the sewer system. KETV reported.
"I'm sure he didn't know if anybody was looking for him or if they could find him. So he was kind of in a self-rescue situation," explained Capt. Joe Guido. .
Members of OFD pulled one worker out of a manhole. He was tethered to a tagline.
"And then (he told) us, 'Hey, we've got a guy that's swept away,'" Guido said. "That's a different dynamic."
Capt. Kurt Brauer added: "The rain wasn't helping. It was making the manholes fill up, and the water was rushing about 35 miles an hour or more."
Firefighters quickly stationed a boat downhill at the river, ready to catch the man after he climbed an underground wall in the sewer called a weir wall. It was a critical call they say saved his life and diverted him toward the rescue team standing by at the river.
"It wasn't until we had a bystander call, (who) we haven't been able to identify, saying that we had somebody who we thought was our individual," Guido said. "I would probably give him 90 percent of that credit. We were just in the right places at the right times to facilitate whatever needs he needed."
The established an IV and warmed him.
"It's a miracle that he was able to have a good outcome, and we were able to get him rescued," Brauer said.
