A Plumber’s Tale: stuck deep in the waste pipe, round the bend

Numb fingers, twisted elbow, stuck shoulder, aching back muscles and trapped in a household waste pipe to the shoulder_ the plumber, after more than 30 minutes lying face hard against a house outer wall, finally managed to use his free hand to “phone a friend.”

“I go above and beyond (should that be below and past the bendy bit?) for my customers,” Mark Sutcliffe joked as he told of a Martinborough wastepipe clearing job that went horribly wrong.

Three days after his release from the 100mm plastic waste pipe’s grip, his arm was still severely bruised, though massage had dulled the back pains. Blood flow to his fingers was back in order.

As Mark tells it, an elderly couple had a blocked waste drain where a fat burger had stalled the liquid flow.

He pushed his hand into the pipe, round the 90deg. bend and down to where his fingers could just touch the blockage, but not grasp it firmly. 

It may have been the touch that encouraged his efforts, as he lay flat on the ground against the external house wall, pushing his upper arm down the pipe, right up to the armpit/shoulder, and with his face against the wall.

“I could feel the fat there, but the arm wouldn’t go down far enough, so I put my face and body against the side of the house, and put my left hand down the pipe and began pushing and pushing and pushing.”

“Then my shirt (sleeve) bundled up, so that it held the arm in (the pipe) and it just wouldn’t come out _ and I began thinking ‘this is not good.’”

“I spent about five minutes trying to pull it out, knew I wouldn’t get it out so then I thought ‘what will I do?’”

Mark carries his mobile in a pocket on the front bib of his overalls _ and believes that was the one element of the saga that went his way.

So: “I’ve got my phone in the pocket _ ring a friend.”

“Roger Smith (local builder), ‘I’ve got my arm caught down a drain, come and get me out _ bring a multi-tool to cut it,’ ’’ he said.  

Then the tingling from low blood flow began in his fingers.

“I could feel it (the arm) swelling and could feel my fingers going numb.  On top of that, one back muscle was getting super painful because of the position I was (lying) in and my ribs were getting painful because they were pushing against something.”

Asked by the homeowner if he would like a pillow or blanket, he said “no thank you … I don’t plan on staying over night.”

She then noted a spouting drip was falling on “you poor person,” to which Mark replied: “I know, it’s like Japanese water torture.”

Roger Smith cut off the bunched-up sleeve and pulled it out of the way before drizzling dish-washing liquid down the arm to no effect.

Using a fish spatula to shield Mark’s arm, he cut through the plastic piping “then squeezed the pipe apart so I could pull it (arm) out. That was it _ straight to the cigarette. That settled me down a bit.”

The left hands’ fingers were “as numb as hell, there was big bruising and numbness” on the forearm below the elbow because of the pipe L-bend and right around the top of the upper arm. 

“I’ve never done anything like it before,” he told The Star, laughing. 

Caption: A Plumber’s Tale: Mark Sutcliffe demonstrates being trapped round the bend.