A Chicago electrician trapped more than 130 feet in the air inside a towering gas station sign became so frightened during the ordeal that he recorded farewell messages for his wife and children.
A.J. Gow was carrying out electrical work on the massive truck stop sign in Wilmington, Illinois, on July 21 when a mechanical failure turned a routine job into a terrifying six-hour emergency.
‘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,’ Gow told ABC7 Chicago as he recalled being stranded high above the ground.
Gow and a colleague had been using a telescopic boom lift to service the giant sign. His co-worker had gone down to retrieve water and a battery-operated fan, but the lift malfunctioned before he could return to the top.
That left Gow stuck alone in a cramped compartment near the top of the sign, with no immediate way down.
At first, he believed the equipment issue would be resolved quickly.
But by about 2 p.m., after roughly four hours trapped inside the structure, his concern began to grow.
With no water and no fan, Gow said the heat inside the sign became harder and harder to endure as the hours passed.
A.J Gow expected a routine shift on July 21, repairing the electrical workings of a gas station sign. However the day took a unexpected turn that saw Gow stranded in the tiny compartment for hours
The electrician later revealed the fierce anxiety that plagued him in that moment, stuck for hours without water or fans, admitting he recorded goodbye messages to his wife and kids from the sign
First responders struggled to rescue him due to the sign’s height and lack of proper equipment on-site and scoured the nearby city for any resources that could help, eventually securing a ladder that saw Gov safely evacuated
‘Eventually I started to feel like crap and I told him, you know, call EMS’ Gow said.
He added that he told his co-worker to call emergency services and do whatever was necessary to get him down.
As the hours passed, Gow grew increasingly frightened that he might not survive the ordeal, his thoughts swiftly turning to his family.
‘I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen,’ he recounted.
He took out his phone and recorded messages for his wife and children in case rescuers could not reach him in time.
‘God forbid if something were to actually happen, it was my final words,’ he explained. ‘So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye.’
The eventual rescue was complicated by the alarming height of the sign, which stood more than 130 feet above the ground.
Local firefighters who responded to the scene could not simply use their ladders because they reached only about 100 feet. Gow also had no safe way to climb down from inside the structure.
However, rescuers eventually found a lift tall enough to reach him in the nearby city of Joliet.
Illinois State Police helped escort the equipment to the scene, allowing the rescue team to position it beneath the sign.
Gow was eventually brought safely back to the ground.
‘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 revealed that he was ‘not prepared’ for the incident to attract as much speculation 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 experience has nevertheless changed the way Gow approaches his work.
The electrician has returned to servicing signs but plans to remain inside the lift bucket while working at extreme heights rather than risk becoming trapped inside a sign again.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Wilmington Fire Protection District for comment.
