A HOT and dehydrated man has been pulled out of a greasy ventilation shaft at Melbourne's Crown Casino complex after spending the night trapped in oil and fat in the ceiling of the first floor.

The 25-year-old was heard screaming around 10am this morning when chefs at the Automatic Cafe turned on the ovens in the morning and the hot air started drifting up toward him.



"You could tell he was saying 'Help!' and he had enough but when we were asking him 'Where are you?' and 'How did you get in there?' he couldn't really give us a direct answer," a chef at the cafe told Network Ten.



A search and rescue fire truck and paramedics were called to pull the man out of the shaft.



Paramedic Ross Parker was harnessed up and crawled into the shaft to rescue the trapped man who was hot and dehydrated.



He grabbed him by the feet and he slipped out, covered in grease from head to toe.



Firefighters explored how the man could have possibly got stuck and found a fifth floor entry point.



It's believed the man illegally gained access to the steel duct from a stairwell around 11pm the night before, crawled about 30 metres and then fell vertically through the vents until he became wedged just above the cafe's grill.



It's not known why the man decided to explore the vents.



Police are investigating and will interview him at a later date.

Originally published as Grease covered man pulled from ventilation