Mike Peters, Hank Martinez, and Ed Magaletta call to Mark Mihal in the sinkhole
- 43-year-old mortgage banker Mark Mihal was playing golf with three friends
- He was at the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois
- Noticing a depression in the ground, he walked over and ground gave way
- He became trapped in the 12-foot sinkhole and had to be rescued
- Mr Mihal suffered a broken shoulder and torn tendons after the fall
Mark Mihal, 43, and his partner Mike Peters, were easily beating regular opponents Ed Magaletta and Hank Martinez during a game in early March last year.
Mr Mihal and Mr Peters had both outdriven the other pair on the 14th hole of the Annbriar golf course in Waterloo, Illinois.
Each landed the ball nicely on the fairway, leaving Mr Magaletta and Mr Martinez at the edge of the woods trying to clear a bunker.
But while Mr Mihal was waiting for Mr Peters to hit his second shot, he noticed a shallow, bathtub-size depression in the grass of the fairway.
It was out of place on the well-kept course, and looked as if it would be tricky to play out of.
He walked over and stepped into the depression - and promptly vanished.
43-year-old mortgage banker Mark Mihal was playing golf with friends when he fell into a sinkhole
Mr Magaletta shined a small torch out of his pocket and pointed it down the hole. All he could see of Mark was a bit of white T-shirt.
He shouted down to him: 'Are you all right, Mark?'
'No, I'm not. My shoulder's broken. I can't move.' The stricken golfer replied according to a feature in the February issue of Reader's Digest.
To make the situation worse, Mr Mihal is claustrophobic so his friends enlarged the hole overhead, letting in more daylight.
The sinkhole was about 12 feet across and narrower at the top and he had landed on mud and other debris that had fallen with him.
One of the course's owners, William Nobbe, and his son Russ arrived with a 12-foot ladder and a rope, but as it was too short, they resorted to putting it on the mud pile.
The injured man then had to slide across the mud pile and tried to climb up the ladder but he was too hurt to manage it.
Mr Magaletta then went down to fetch his friend.
Sinkholes: When the ground opens up beneath your feet
San Francisco, California, 1995. A broken sewer pipe caused this hole
City officials surveyed a 60-foot-deep sinkhole that swallowed two homes in San Francisco's exclusive Sea Cliff district and forced the evacuation of nine other homes,
The hole measured approximately 200 feet by 150 feet and the fire department said was probably caused by a broken sewer pipe.
Sea Cliff is perched on wind-swept, rocky cliffs near the Presidio. Many of its homes have spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Marin headlands.
Huge: A sinkhole in China caused devastation for the local neighbourhood
Local residents look at a sinkhole near Qingquan primary school in Dachegnqiao town of Ningxiang, Hunan province, China.
The hole, measuring 492 feet wide and 164 feet deep, first appeared in January 2010 and destroyed 20 houses.
No causalities has been reported and the reason for the appearance of the hole remains unclear.
San Diego: A sinkhole damaged this major road in the busy city of San Diego
A sinkhole damaged an on-ramp to Interstate 15 in San Diego in February 1998.
The hole was caused by a drainage pipe which burst due to heavy rains attributed to El Nino weather patterns and was approximately 800-feet long, 40-feet wide, and 70-feet deep.
When he descended, Mr Magaletta climbed down the ladder and shone his torch around the cave. At its bottom was a crack four feet long and four inches wide.
Through his medical training, he realised Mr Mihal was seriously injured and made a sling from his jacket for his friend's arm.
His shoulder was dislocated and the pair were now fighting against the coninuing collapse of the hole they were in.
The crack on the floor below them was widening and the friends knew they had to get out of the hole quickly.
An ambulance was waiting at the clubhouse as they pulled up in the golf cart.
In hospital, Mr Mihal learned that his shoulder was separated and fractured in two places. His biceps tendon was also torn.
The Annbriar Golf Course blocked off the sinkhole with fencing and, using heavy equipment, excavated the area.
What lay on the other side of the crack on the bottom of the hole was another chamber. If that crack had given way, both men would probably have been buried beneath the muddy contents of the mound that Mr Mihal landed on, according to Randall Orndorff of the US Geological Service.
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