A man in the Russian city of Kursk has been saved from certain death after surviving a day trapped in the underground heating system. The dramatic rescue operation was captured on film by RT’s Ruptly video agency.

On Monday, local children heard a strange voice emanating below the ground in Kursk. Puzzled youths rushed to investigate the sounds emanating below the earth’s surface. Through a hole beneath layers of concrete and frozen ground, the they noticed a human eye and a finger of a person, desperately calling for help.

When rescuers arrived at the scene they discovered a man in his 40s, stuck in the subterranean pipe network that delivers hot water to the residents of Kursk from the city’s heat generation plants. The man was extremely lucky to survive, as pipes in the peak of the winter may get heated up to 130 degrees Celsius, which would make a person almost certainly burn alive on contact with them. Luckily for the victim, the segment which he was wriggling through was covered with insulation and heat in the pipes was not raised to its full capacity.

Fearing for the victim’s life and with no time to waste, the emergency team quickly looked for a nearby hatch which could lead them to the underground pipe network. However, retrieving the victim via a hatch could pose risks, so the crew instead chose to cut through the cement using a concrete saw.

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Soon the man resurfaced on the streets of Kursk wearing just a pair of underpants. The victim explained, the best he could, that he was forced to lose his clothing to better maneuver in confined space of the city’s heating network. He also revealed that he spent at least an entire day searching for a way out.

The man informed the rescuers that he was intoxicated and does not recall how he ended up below ground. There he found himself stuck in a confined space that was just big enough for a small child to squirm through.

Dramatic video of the rescue by RT’s Ruptly also shows a number of burns that the victim has suffered crawling the hot pipes underneath the city. While the city authorities conduct an investigation into a bizarre case, the man has been taken to a local hospital to get his injuries treated.