Man Buried By 40 Pounds Of Cheddar And Red Leicester Cheese For Nine Harrowing Hours

A forklift operator spent nine hours buried under 40 pounds of cheese, stacked 13 feet deep, in a warehouse in Shropshire, England, on Friday.

His ordeal began about 9 a.m., when rows of shelving collapsed at a food distribution center. According to Shropshire Fire and Rescue spokesman Malcolm Stevenson, the cheese — identified as cheddar and Red Leicester — was stacked on metal racking “virtually up to the ceiling, pretty high” and “organized in corridors,” BBC News reported.

The shelving was reportedly 59 feet high.

Somehow, rows and rows of shelving all came crashing down; employees told the Mirror that the shelves fell “like dominoes.”

One employee said, “It was terrifying. Everybody just ran for their lives.”

“The noise was deafening. it was like a sonic boom or an earthquake. I thought the whole place was going to come down and crush us all.”

Shortly after the stacks of cheese fell, news emerged that one man didn’t get out. Worker Debbie Belcher was filled with “fear and dread” after she learned the man trapped was co-worker Tomasz Wisniewski. For a long while, he was feared dead.

Hinstock warehouse collapse: Probe starting after man buried by cheese https://t.co/6JL9wonMaj #Shropshire pic.twitter.com/4wcoOsBhJc

— SHROPSHIRE (@DailySHROPSHIRE) May 9, 2016

A search for the man buried in cheese, who is in his 30s, began. Officials said later that the rescue operation was massive in its scope and perhaps the biggest in local history. Specialist search and rescue teams were called in from the West Midlands, Merseyside, and Leicestershire, the Independent reported, augmented by fire crews, ambulance, and police.

Searchers employed sniffer dogs, drones, and microphones in hopes of finding the man among the cheese, the Shropshire Star reported. Eventually, the buried man was discovered and was able to shout back, confirmation that he’d miraculously survived the initial incident.

“I can’t imagine what he’s been going through,” Belcher said.

But that was half the battle. The second half was the mounds of cheddar and Red Leicester. Deputy Chief Fire Officer Rod Hammerton described the rescue as like “crawling over rubble, but rubble made of giant blocks of cheese.”

Specialist cutting equipment had to be employed to get inside the building since the shelving wreckage and piles of cheese were hard to navigate. Ultimately, the rescue operation took eight hours.

The man was finally pulled from the piles of cheese at around 6 p.m., Express reported. Fire crews ultimately had to use drones to help cut through the roof to find Tomasz. The Mirror reported that crews cut a hole in a wall in order to gain access to the buried man.

According to co-worker Debbie, whose father Francis Edwards owns the firm with control over the warehouse, family and colleagues had gathered at the site, anxiously awaiting the moment the buried man was extracted from the piles of cheese. When he finally was, everyone cheered.

An incredible story! 'Miracle' escape for man buried by 4000 tonnes of cheese! https://t.co/BbxTVAxlir pic.twitter.com/x89qCnzmv9

— Chris Halpin (@ChrisHalpinTV) May 6, 2016

“It’s a miracle – he walked out. You can feel here the sense of relief. We whooped and cheered as he came out, we couldn’t have asked for better. I’m relieved but I know there are two women who will be far more relieved – his mother and his fiancée. There was hope from the start, but this is just a miracle … We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.”

Shortly after, Tomasz could be seen chatting and smiling with paramedics from a hazardous area response team as they checked him over. He was deemed safe and well, which a spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance Services called astonishing.

“After so long trapped under the contents of the warehouse, the worker was able to walk out of the warehouse.”

He was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, as was another employee who was suffering from shock.

The young man, who is a Polish national living in the nearby city of Telford, is slated to get married next year. He declined to speak with the media about being buried under a pile of cheese.

However, the man’s rescuers believe that his life was likely saved by the frame of his forklift truck.

An inspection at the warehouse, an investigation into the accident, and a massive cleanup will now begin. The building was intact but was “bowling to the sides.”

[Image via Ted PAGEL/Shutterstock]