Man Drowns in Sewer Trying to Recover Dropped Mobile Phone

A 41 year old man has drowned after he was trapped in a sewer while trying to retrieve his mobile phone. Local police report that he apparently tried to retrieve his dropped mobile phone using a garden rake, but when that failed - he removed the cover off the drain and tried to reach into the sewer to get at the phone. He then seemed to have fallen into the sewer and got stuck.

Brett Gunn weighed more than 300 pounds and was trapped head-first. Local bystanders attempted to pull him back out, but with about a foot of water in the drain, the man had drowned by the time he was removed. Neighbor Chris Van Erem said it ultimately took six firefighters to pull the man from the sewer.

"It was just an everyday event that ended in tragedy," Lt. James Veeser of the Sheboygan Police Department told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.

Rescue personnel attempted to resuscitate the man, who was taken to Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center and pronounced dead, Veeser said.

The mobile phone was later found at the bottom of the sewer."

Posted to the site on 7th June 2007