Boy’s body retrieved from concrete pillar 21 days after he fell in

At 1:20 a.m. two members of a rescue team from the Dong Thap Province police department wearing oxygen masks went down to a depth of 24m in an iron pipe that was driven in around the pillar into which Thai Ly Hao Nam fell, and used specialized equipment to bring his body up.

The task took nearly two hours.

Nam's coffin was then taken to his house a kilometer away and handed over to his family for burial.

Thai Van Tan Tai, Nam's father, sat in a corner with lifeless eyes, crying. In front of an altar set up for Nam, Nguyen Thi My Linh, his mother, cried and passed out.

"Though the rescue took a long time, due to the closed environment, the decomposition of Nam’s body took place more slowly than usual, and so the body remained intact," the province’s deputy chairman, Doan Tan Buu, said.

A forensic examination done at the scene determined that the cause of death was multiple injuries due to colliding with the hard wall and fell into the water environment, he said.

After the boy is buried, authorities would order an investigation and penalize violations if any are found, he added.

Rescue forces pack equipment into their vehicle after retrieving the body of Thai Ly Hao Nam from a concrete pillar at 1:40 a.m. on January 20, 2023. Photo by Thanh Tung

Nam and three of his neighbors went to the bridge construction site in Dong Thap Province on December 31 to look for scrap iron.

The scrawny boy fell down a pile’s open shaft that was just 25cm across.

Witnesses said he screamed for help for 10 minutes after falling in before going quiet.

Dong Thap authorities announced Nam dead on January 4.