he s so close, rescuers can talk to him, even touch him, but they can t get him out. they know if they don t act fast, they ll watch this child die before their very own eyes. i m trying, but it hurts. the first thing we did was build rigging below him just to make sure he didn t slip down any farther. next, tom smith with the l.a. county sheriff s department is able to slip a rope around paul from above, and he starts pulling. i was pulling on him so hard that i couldn t believe it. it should have lifted someone twice his size. is it doing anything? no. paul is wedged in so tight rescuers worry if they pull too hard, they ll yank an arm right out of its socket. that s it. that s it. keep it up. keep it up. keep it up. okay.
there he is. there he is right there on top of the rock. when he started moving, he came out of his pants is basically what it had done. his pants stayed attached to the granite rock, that s how pinned he was. you going to go climbing again? no! firefighters told me that if i would have went down two more inches, my chest would have caved in and i would have died. i would have been suffocated. paul is in great spirits, but he can t help but think back to the first few minutes when he wasn t sure if he was going to make it. in fact, my first thought was i ll never see my mom or my friends, stuff like that. you know, i would never see them again. but somehow, the 11-year-old boy managed to compose himself. captain roy credits paul for staying so calm, and paul thanks captain roy, his brother and all the rescuers involved for saving his life. no words i can explain my thanks. i mean, they were terrific. they did a great job.
okay. you want to take a break? paul needs the rest. the temperature is 110 degrees and it is even hotter on the rocks. he s becoming dangerously dehydrated. you have to start scooting down the crack. he was quickly becoming exhausted from trying to help us, and that was a concern, also, that soon he wouldn t be able to help us. just an hour earlier, paul and a friend had been climbing on these rocks, a favorite neighborhood hangout in the high desert 70 miles north of los angeles when suddenly, paul loses his footing and falls 18 feet below the surface. and by now, an hour into the ordeal, firefighter tom jones knows his team won t be able to pull paul to safety from above. so they decide it s time to call in the big guns, l.a. s urban search and rescue team, one of the most elite rescue units in the country. as they wait for the help to arrive, paul s big brother, tommy, tries in that brotherly way to keep paul calm. i told him, hang in there.
you know, and he looks over at me. i m going to go get some water. don t go anywhere, you know. finally, the rescue team arrives from l.a. and captain roy, who thought he d seen it all, can t believe what he s looking at. it was amazing. i was a little bit stunned for a second and then my mind started gearing up. yeah, keep it tight. i don t want him slipping down. by now, it s been almost two hours. paul is understandably exhausted. captain roy knows that no matter what plan he comes up with, he ll need maximum effort from everybody involved, including 11-year-old paul. at the time, he was getting real sleepy, so i talked to him and asked, do you play baseball? he said, oh, yeah. he perked up. i said, you know how it is when you re out there and it is hot and you are tired and your coach wants to give you a little more physical effort and things to push yourself? and that actually kind of perked him up a little bit more. captain roy runs through his options. none of their
separate rock, seem like they d work in this situation. and just then, it hits him. i thought of wesson oil, you know, give some lubrication. wesson oil, not exactly a technique you learned in rescue school, but he s trained to solve problem fast. so he dispatches people, including paul s brother tommy, to come back with the popular vegetable oil. so we said, okay, we ll be right back. they returned within minutes, passing the lubricant into the waiting hands of captain roy. i started just pouring it onto him where i could splash him a little bit and let it run down the rock onto his pants and soaked the front and back of him. another firefighter douses paul from above just to make sure he s good and slick. and i said, okay, let s go. they pull and he started yelling a little bit. i said, don t stop, guys. we weren t stopping. no matter how much he screamed, he was coming out. after five minutes of pulling as hard as they can and a grueling 2 hours and 56 minutes into t