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         Trapped in Well

        by Eva F. Kovats

    Mishi Dobos sat on the stoop of the old one-room stone cottage in the afternoon sun. So much still needs to be done, the lanky 19-year-old said to himself as he surveyed the muddy yard, the peeling plaster, the broken roof tiles. Beyond the hedgerow he could see that the trees in the forest were beginning to lose their leaves. It was Thursday, October 31, 1991, two days before All Souls' Day, a time of remembrance in Hungary.

    To surprise his mother, Mishi was on his way home to the town of Dombovar for the long weekend from the school of wildlife management he attended. His mother would not be back from her job as a social worker until evening, so Mishi had decided first t check out the family summer cottage, located on the sparsely settled outskirts of Dombovar.

    He loved the tumbledown house. It had taken all his mother's savings to buy it, but she, Mishi and his younger sister, Katalin, spent idyllic times there. Ever since his father left the family a few years earlier, Mishi had assumed the role of man of the house, doing much-needed repairs on the building.

    As Mishi pondered what he might tackle next, his eyes fell on the garden well. It was a solid brick structure about four feet in diameter. He had peered down it several times the previous summer, wondering why it had gone dry. Now he decided to have another look.

    Rising, Mishi pulled a flashlight from his pocket and went to the well. If we clean it out, he thought, maybe it will have water again. He looked into the 74-foot shaft, as deep as a six-story building. The flashlight beam barely penetrated the darkness, so Mishi climbed up on the edge for a better view. He didn't notice the frosty moss on the rim.

    Suddenly Mishi was plummeting feet first down the brick-lined shaft, his arms and back scraping against the rough sided. With a jolt, he found himself at the bottom, ankle-deep in soft mud. His knees buckled, and Mishi collapsed for ward, the wind knocked out of him. He took a minute, catching his breath. Then, relieved that he had survived the fall, he looked up. The mouth of the well was a frighteningly distant, coin-sized patch of light.

Chilling Realization

    Panic seized him at first. I'll never get out of here. Then a more immediately problem loomed. What happened to my glasses? He sat down and groped for them. His hand swept through a small puddle of putrid water, then touched a jagged slab of concrete. Propped against the wall was a partly rotted wooden cylinder that must have been the well's crank. A chilling thought flashed through Mishi's mind: What if I had landed on this stuff?

    Running his hand along the foot of the slimy wall, he found his glasses, miraculously intact. He put them on, but still he could hardly see in the gloom. He got up on his hands and knees and combed every bit of the floor for his flashlight, but this time came up empty. At least I have my watch, he thought, glancing at its luminous face. It was 1:30 p.m.

    Mishi tried to stand again but was seized by sharp pains in his side and hip. "I can't believe all this is happening to me," he muttered as he sat back down.

    Soon his left foot began to throb. He took off his shoe for a time to ease the pain, not realizing that his ankle was deeply gashed and his big toe was broken.

    After a while he said to himself, I've got to at least try. He braced his back against the wall and his feet against the opposite side and began ratcheting himself upward. After shinning about ten feet, he was unable to cling to the slippery bricks, and plopped back to the bottom. He kept trying for an hour or so, until he collapsed, exhausted. I just need a rest, he thought. It was 3 p.m. and already pitch-black at the bottom of the well.

Bitten
    Mishi tried to relax, but couldn't get comfortable on the mud and dirt, so he sat on the cylinder, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. But the cylinder was covered with the remnants of the steel draw cable, and each time Mishi dozed he slid painfully against the cable's jagged barbs. He finally draped his scarf on the cylinder and sat on it. Then he was able to nod off.

    A sudden sharp pain jarred him wake. He jumped in fright and swatted at his leg. An insect had apparently crawled from the puddle and bitten his open wound. The place is crawling with bugs, Mishi thought with a shiver. People go mad in condition like this.

    Trying to stay warm, he pulled his jacket around his neck and blew on the hands. Then de dozed off once more.

    Mishi slept fitfully until he woke at the first glimmer of morning light from above. His stomach was knotted with hunger. How will I survive without food and water? I've got to get out of here!
When he stood, however, the excruciating pain in his foot made him sink back to the ground.

     "Help!" he began to shout. "Help!"

    Just then, around 8 a.m., Istvan Orsos, a neighbor, was out riding his bike, accompanied by his three dogs. As he wheeled past the Dobos cottage, the animals tore into the yard and barked madly. They're on a scent - probably a fox, Orsos thought. But he wasn't about to go on someone else's property, so he moved on.

    Mishi heard the dogs bark and felt a rush of hope. It won't be long now. He kept up his screaming.

    As Mishi's voice echoed off the well's walls, his shouts pounded against his own ears. Still, no one came to his rescue. After an hour, he sank back on his cylinder perch, hoarse and fighting back tears. His broken toe hurt so much that he took his shoe and sock off and socked his foot in the cold puddle to ease the pain. Please, he prayed, let Mom come to the house for the weekend. But he knew that she had no reason to visit the house.

    Now he couldn't stop to think about food. I'm so hungry, he thought, I could eat a whole bowl of lecso, a tomato, onion and green-pepper dish he normally detested.

    The next morning, All Souls' Day, Mishi yelled for two solid hours for help. When he got no response, it dawned on him for the first time that he might die in the well, his body never to be found. His mother undoubtedly thought he stayed in school for the weekend, while the school thought he was at home. Feeling abandoned. Mishi buried his head in his hands and cried.

    He thought about his family. He now regretted that he had refused Katalin's request to go on a stroll with him the last time he was home. She was 14 years old, adored Mishi and demanded all his attention.

    Then he considered how his mother would take the news of his disappearance. They were very close, and Mishi always told her where he was going. He knew she would never understand how he could just vanish.

    Shortly after noon, it started to rain. Mishi turned his head upward and tried to drink the drops. His face and jacket got wet, but his tongue stayed dry and swollen.

Friendly Visitors

    Sitting on the cylinder, Mishi leaned forward and closed his eyes. Soon, to his amazement, cavity after cavity opened up in the wall, and strangers popped out. They were friendly folk, village people who chatted about everyday concerns like the harvest and the early frost. When Mishi told them he was hungry and thirsty, the visitors fell silent. "Then just show me how to get out!" he begged. At that, the strangers turned and withdrew. "Please let me come with you!" Mishi screamed as the vision vanished.

    On his fourth day in the well, Mishi tried to make his seat a little more comfortable. He grabbed the cylinder by a carpenter's clamp---a foot-long piece of metal with upturned ends---which was at one end, to shift the cylinder to a better position. The clamp ripped away from the rotting wood.

    Mishi stared at the sharp piece of rusty steel in his hand. What can I do with this? He wondered. He began to scrape and chip at the all, thinking he could find a trickle of water, but his search was in vain. His frustration swelled into rage. He hammered the wall with his fists. Again he tried to shinny up, and again he slid back, "Oh., God!" he shouted. "I have to get out!" He was exhausted, and his mouth felt as if it were on fire. "I must have some water or I will faint," he thought. He stared for a moment at the disgusting puddle at his feet. Then he took the vinyl sleeve of his railway pass from his pocket and filled it with water from the pool, careful not to scoop up any insects. He took a sip and gagged from the swampy stench. Holding his nose, he took another - and felt new strength in his limbs.

A Frightening Slip

    Surveying the wall, Mishi noticed that a brick was missing on one side. That gave him an idea. If he used the metal clamp to remove bricks in a staggered, upward sequence, the holes would provide toeholds for climbing out. The walls might cave in, he thought, but it's my only chance.
    The bricks, swollen with moisture and pressed together by the full weight of the structure, were difficult to budge, and the mortar was too hard to loosen. Mishi had to chip away at the bricks. By dark he had forged only two toeholds. 

    This will never work, Mishi thought as he sank back to the floor. He rested and took another drink from the mud puddle. Finally he stirred. "I am not let my family down." At dawn of the fifth day he was back on the wall.

    Off the ground, the work became even harder. While resting one foot in a toehold, Mishi had to brace himself against the opposite wall with the other foot and one hand, and wield the heavy clamp with the other. He found the most he could do was three bricks an hour, after which he had to climb back down to rest. As pried away more bricks, he lined them up on the bottom to make a primitive pallet. Exhausted, he would sleep.

    Still, his stamina was running out. Mishi was again haunted by visions. He made the "visitors" disappear by scaling back up the wall. "I've got to keep going," he muttered.

    By day six he had made it more then halfway up. At one point, as he started back down for a rest, he couldn't find a toehold for his left foot. Hanging three stories above the bottom, he suddenly felt his other foot slip. He clung to the bricks with his fingers, tearing off his nails, until he managed to find the other toehold. Gasping for air, he felt his pulse throbbing at his throat. Then he collected himself and cautiously edged back to the bottom.

    The next morning, when he was working about 15 feet from the top, Mishi felt an icy trickle on his foot. He climbed down and took off his shoe. Aghast, he saw that his toes were black from frostbite, and liquid was oozing from them.

    Soaking the foot had eased the pain of his broken toe, but it had also given him gangrene. Mishi knew that if he didn't get to a doctor soon, the foot would have to be amputated. He made a momentous decision. So far he had made the toeholds only a foot or two apart so that he could more easily grope for them on his way down. Now he would make them as far apart as he could reach. This would save time, but also make it nearly impossible to retreat to the bottom. He put his shoe back on, climbed up and set to work again.

    For over an hour he kept at it. Suddenly, he felt his head start to spin and his strength leave him. He paused, clinging to the wall. Could he afford to climb back down for a rest? No, he told himself. I have to go on, or I will die.

    One hand in a crevice, Mishi pried out another brick with his free hand and let it plummet. He shinned himself up a notch and tore out another. He was now only ten feet from the top... now only six feet! He was finally able to grab the upper rim. Pulling with all his might, he swung his leg over it, gave one last heave and fell into the dry weeds surrounding the well. The first thing he felt was the sun's warmth on his shoulders.

    On November 7 at 12:30, six days and 23 hours after plunging into the well, Mishi Dobos was free. For a minute or so he had to shield his eyes from the blinding light. Then he looked around. He was astonished at how bare the trees had become and how different everything looked.
He caught sight of the rusty carpenter's clamp, now lying in the weeds, and suddenly burst into giddy laughter. When all had seemed lost, God had given him this normally useless thing as a means to freedom, and the cleverness and strength to use it. Never again would he take anything in life for granted.

    Mishi eventually hobbled to the nearest house. The neighbors were incredulous until he showed them his foot. Taken to the hospital by ambulance, he received treatment for his toe fracture, frostbite, numerous lacerations, and dehydration. He slept almost continuously for three days. A month later he was back in school.

    Today, Mishi says the experience taught him to appreciate everyday blessings in life - sunshine, a clean bed, a wholesome meal, and especially his family and his friends. As for the well, he and his family have made arrangements to fill it in.

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