Woman rescued from storm sewer Wednesday afternoon

August 12, 2020 – Bloomington, Indiana USA: A member of the Bloomington Fire Department looks through a grate into a storm sewer in the 300 block of W. 4th Street while helping rescue a woman who had gotten into a storm sewer system and couldn’t get out, Wednesday, August 12, 2020. (Photo by Jeremy Hogan/The Bloomingtonian)

Members of the Bloomington Police Department and Bloomington Fire Department rescued a woman from a storm sewer under an alley in the 300 block of W. 4^th Street near the intersection of Madison around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

A passerby heard the woman screaming from under the street through a metal grate and called 911, according to Bloomington Fire Department Gold Shift Battalion Chief Roger Kerr.

Kerr said the woman may have entered the storm sewer system somewhere around the Shalom Center before making her way into the downtown system. Firefighters pulled off a manhole cover and put an attic ladder down into the storm sewer before getting the woman out.

The woman leaned up against a wall in the alley for several minutes as emergency responders talked to her, and checked her condition. She later walked to an ambulance.

Kerr said the woman was disoriented, but physically ok.