Girl saved
© uvao.moscow
A walk in the park almost turned to tragedy for a little girl in Moscow, when she fell into a poorly-covered pipe filled with water. It took a blood-chilling trick, performed by a volunteer boy, to save the day.

In a video first published by the Mash Telegram channel, a group of men are seen trying to reach into a pipe going down below a lawn of a park in southeastern Moscow. "Grab her! Grab her!" they can be heard shouting, before the slim figure of a boy is lowered into the darkened pipe - and later emerges with a bawling toddler girl in tow.

According to Mash, the girl was running across the lawn when she stepped on the pipe's cover. It gave way, sending her plunging about four meters down.

A group of passers-by rushed to her aid but realized there was nothing they could do to help, as the pipe was too narrow for them to reach down and pull the girl out. They tried to reach her with a branch broken off a nearby tree, but she kept slipping as she tried to grasp it. Someone called an emergency crew, but time was running out - the pipe was filled with water, and the girl risked drowning.

That's when another child, a boy who was taking a walk nearby, agreed to help. A plan was hastily cobbled together on the spot: all the men took off their belts, tied them together and looped them around the boy's feet.

Then, the volunteer kid was carefully lowered, head-first, into the dark tunnel.

The plan worked: in the end, the boy, whose name has not been released, is seen coming back up again and pulling the little girl out with him - crying her lungs out, but with no apparent sign of injury.