Teen boy falls down well in Jersey City

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey (WABC) -- A 16-year-old boy fell down a well in Jersey City Tuesday night.

It happened around 8 p.m. at Jefferson and Summit avenues near the Jersey City Reservoir.

After nearly an hour submerged at the bottom of a dark and dank well, the 16-year-old boy walked out of the old pump house on his own two feet.

He was wet and cold and pretty shaken up, after an experience that must have been downright terrifying.

"For him I'm sure it was," said Batt. Chief Henry DiGuilio, Jersey City Fire Department.

Fire fighters say the teen, along with two of his friends, had broken into the locked building plastered with graffiti.

The building was used once to pump water from one of Jersey City's original reservoirs, but has long since been decommissioned.

Inside, eight 40-50 foot wells are covered with boards of plywood, but one of those boards had rotted through.

When the teen stepped on it he plunged to the bottom. He wound up clinging to a pipe in 10-feet of water, until rescuers could get him out.

"We had a rescue team set up tripod and sent a rescuer down there and we took him out using ropes and a tripod," DiGuilio said.

The boy was taken to Jersey City Medical Center in stable condition, where he is being examined.

He did not suffer life-threatening injuries.