Man recorded goodbye message to wife and kids while he was trapped in 130-foot high gas station sign for hours
NEED TO KNOW
- A.J. Gow was trapped for hours in a 130-foot-high sign after a lift malfunctioned during a routine job
- First responders struggled to rescue him due to the sign’s height and lack of proper equipment on-site
- Gow shared in an interview with ABC7 Chicago that he has returned to work, but now plans to stay in the lift bucket to avoid being stranded again
An Illinois electrician is speaking out, one month after he became trapped for hours in a truck stop sign more than 130 feet in the air.
Speaking with WABC, A.J. Gow opened up about the incident that led to him becoming stuck for hours without water in Wilmington, located about 60 miles outside Chicago, on July 21.
According to the electrician, he and a co-worker began the seemingly routine job servicing some electric signs by using a telescopic boom lift and climbing inside.
“It was a hot day. There was really no air, so I sent my co-worker down. I said, ‘go get me some water and my battery powered fan,’ ” he recounted. “He went down, and on his way back up the lift had an issue and could not make it back.”
Gow shared that he wasn’t concerned at first, and simply waited for his co-worker to try and fix the lift to bring him down. However, by 2 p.m., he had been inside the hot sign for four hours without water, and there was still no progress on the lift repair.
“Eventually I started to feel like crap. And I told him, you know, call EMS. I said, I don’t care what you have to do, get me down,” Gow said.
“In the moment, it was getting hairy … I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. And yeah, I was freaking out,” he continued.
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Gow eventually decided to record messages for his wife and kids, in case things took a turn for the worse.
“God forbid if something were to actually happen — it was my final words,” he explained. “So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye.”
After first responders arrived, even they struggled to get Gow down from the 130-foot sign. There was no ladder in the sign, so Gow was unable to climb to safety, and first responders could not reach him.
Additionally, local fire department ladders only reached a height of 100 feet, CW affiliate WGN and WBC reported at the time.
The fire department and rescue team eventually found a lift that was tall enough in the nearby city of Joliet. Illinois State Police helped escort the lift to the site, where it was set up.
“Although unconventional means were used to effect the rescue due to circumstances, everyone went home safe and uninjured yesterday,” Wilmington Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Todd Friddle told PEOPLE.
Gow shared that he “was not prepared” for the incident to gain as much traction and media attention as it did.
“I had no idea that I was going to be stuck up here for that long, or was going to be anywhere near that kind of scenario,” he told WABC.
The electrician shared that in the aftermath of July’s incident, he has already returned to work servicing signs high above the ground, though he’s made one change — he plans to remain in the lift bucket while working so he won’t become stranded again.
“I’m so fortunate that it turned out the way that it did and I’m able to look back in hindsight and laugh at it,” Gow added.
