This is so sad. Two people lost their lives and several others were injured while trying to help a woman retrieve her cell phone that had fallen into an open-pit toilet in Xinxiang City, Henan province, China.
Apparently, after she dropped the phone, her husband tried to jump in and retrieve it, but he lost consciousness due to a lack of oxygen inside the cesspool (gasses from sewage waste can displace oxygen). When his mother tried to jump in to help him, she lost consciousness as well.
It seems that there was a domino effect that occurred and each time someone jumped in to help one of the victims, they too needed rescuing.
"The smell was too strong. I lost consciousness before I could see anything," one eyewitness told the South China Morning Post.
It took emergency responders over an hour to arrive on scene and while the husband and mother both had pulses when they were pulled out of the hole, they passed away shortly after.
Several people who jumped in to try to save the victims also had to be rescued by neighbors who found a rope and used it to pull them to safety.
After all was said and done, six people were pulled out of the pit and some still remain hospitalized, two of them in intensive care. One of those still in intensive care is the owner of the phone.
(Source: Huffington Post)