It was the afternoon of Easter Sunday, and Jesse Hernandez along with his family, cousins and friends were celebrating at Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Jesse, who was 13, along with his cousins, decided to explore on their own. They went to the other end of the park to an abandoned concrete building. They either climbed over the chain link fence or slipped through a hole to get in. Then they went inside the building and were having fun by jumping on the wooden planks that were there. Suddenly – without warning – a wooden plank collapsed, and Jesse fell 25 feet down a four-foot pipe!
His cousins called to Jesse hoping for an answer, but they heard only the echoes of their own voices. They quickly ran to their parents for help who immediately called 9-1-1 for emergency help.
Over a hundred firefighters, sanitation workers and police officers joined in the search for Jesse. The pipe that Jesse had fallen into had been built many years before to release dangerous, poisonous gases from the sewer system that flowed beneath the city of Los Angeles. The sewer system was so toxic and hazardous that the rescuers dared not go down into it themselves.
They began to study maps of the layout of the vast maze of pipes that ran under the city, trying to figure out where Jesse might come out. It was a complicated network of fast-flowing sewage that flowed at a speed of about 14 miles an hour – too fast for someone to stand up in. And the pipes were too slippery to hold onto. Some of the pipes emptied out into the Los Angeles River, so they sent a rescue crew in that direction. Other pipes led to a treatment plant, so they sent rescue crews in that direction. More rescue crews were sent out that specialized in prying people from small spaces.
Jesse had fallen into the sewer pipe at about 4:30 in the afternoon. As the hours went by, his chances of surviving became less and less, because of how poisonous the environment was. But those searching for him did not give up!
As the hours went by, they decided to lower cameras into the sewer to look for clues as to which way he might have gone. The cameras floated on what looked like a miniature surfboard and had lights for eyes so that they could see. One-thousand-foot-long video cables connected the cameras to monitors inside nearby trucks. As the cameras slowly floated through the pipes, workers in the trucks could see on their video screens exactly what the cameras saw.
The rescue crews had a plan to narrow down where Jesse might be. They dropped the cameras down through maintenance hatches that were spaced out about every 1,000 feet and opened into a large, dome-shaped area. At first, they only saw brown sewage water sloshing through the pipes. But at about 4 a.m. Monday morning – about 12 hours after Jesse had disappeared – they saw something else: a pair of smeared handprints on the wall of the sewer! A little farther down, they saw another smudge on the wall suggesting that Jesse had thrown his shoulder against the wall.
Now they knew they were on the right track! Quickly, they went to the hatch nearest to the handprints, intending to lower the camera there. This particular hatch ran under a major highway, so the California Highway Patrol shut down a lane of traffic so that the sanitation workers could open the manhole cover. They expected the shaft to lead to a dome-shaped area with dark swirling water below. Instead, THEY SAW JESSE about 11 feet down, wedged into the shaft, peering up at them and calling for help!
Wasting no time, they quickly lowered a hose down to Jesse and pulled him up to safety. Jesse had travelled about two-thirds of a mile from where he had fallen into the sewer pipe – that was a journey he’ll never forget!
It had taken nearly 13 hours for rescuers to find Jesse. They were able to decontaminate him right there. They also gave him a cellphone so that he could call his family to let them know the good news that he was OK.
What a frightening experience to have! I think that any one of us would have been scared as well, if we had fallen 25 feet into a dark sewer pipe! Jesse was wet, cold and scared when they found him, but in a later interview he said, “I was just praying to God to help me and not to die.”
Jesse had done the right thing in calling out to God. Do you think that God heard him so far down in that dark sewer? He certainly did! The Bible, God’s Word says, “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” (Psalm 50:1515And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)). Not only did Jesse call out to God, but so did several of his family members. They had cared enough to spend the night at Griffith Park, holding hands with their heads bowed in prayer.
Boys and girls, you might not realize it, but if we do not know Jesus as our Savior, God sees us as sunken deep in the miry clay of sin. We are just as helpless as Jesse was to save ourselves! We need Jesus to save us! Because we are such helpless sinners, God sent His Son Jesus to bleed and die on the cross for our sins. When we put our trust in Jesus, asking Him to forgive our sins, He will save us. To be saved means that our sins are gone, and we will spend eternity with Him in His happy home in heaven. “In Thy presence is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:1111Thou wilt show me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Psalm 16:11)).
Have you come to the Lord Jesus to have your sins washed away? Then He will give you joy, peace and happiness forevermore..
ML-11/04/2018