MADURAI: A 29-year-old man from

had a harrowing experience as he got his right hand stuck in a

in

while he was trying to recover his car keys, which fell into the hole in the early hours of Sunday morning.

The man had to spend more than one-an-half hour inside the toilet with his movement completely restricted, before he got relieved with the help of a team from fire and rescue department from

station. With his 30 minutes of screaming went unheard, the incident came out when a petrol bunk employee went to use the toilet.

The man was identified as K

, 29, from a panchayat town in Thanjavur. A car owner cum driver, he came to Madurai to drop a passenger.

Officials from fire and rescue department said that during the one and half hours of struggle, he had maintained calm and composure. The only thing, which was going in the back of his mind to get his hand back without any fracture. “He wants to join police department and had appeared in written for recruitment of sub-inspector of police held recently and waiting to take part in physical test to enter into uniformed service,” a fire official said.

Thideer Nagar fire station officer R Venkatesan said that they got an alert at around 5.30 am and reached to the spot in no time. They had to break the lavatory and tile floor using a mini driller to widen the PVC pipe in which his hand got entangled. They poured some oil on his hand to loosen a bit, which helped him to withdraw his hand slowly.

“When he inserted his hand, he first found a mobile phone, which was lost by someone else. He though keys would be next to it and inserted his hand further. When the hand got entangled, he could not move a bit and laid there till help arrived,” he said.

Manimaran got treated to minor injuries in a nearby hospital.