Firefighters from the provincial fire and rescue services of Toledo (Castilla-La Mancha) faced one of their toughest missions in recent times over the weekend, carrying out the rescue of a three-year-old boy who had fallen into a well around 15 metres deep.
The emergency alert was raised on Saturday afternoon. When crews arrived at the site of the accident — a plot of land in Tembleque, near the Cristo del Valle shrine and chapel — they found a narrow opening, roughly 30 centimetres across, which had once formed part of an old waterwheel.
The child’s family, who had been with him at the time, had contacted the authorities immediately.
Nine firefighters from brigades based in Orgaz and Villacañas, along with the duty commander from Toledo, took part in the operation, which ultimately ended successfully with the boy being brought out alive.
The rescue, however, was highly complex. The shaft’s extremely tight entrance meant careful planning was required. ‘and we decided that, while one of the firefighters went down to support the boy, the others would devise a system to pull them both out from the depths’, explained fire sergeant Alejandro Cepeda.
Despite sustaining multiple injuries, the child remained conscious throughout the ordeal. Rescuers had to extract him while keeping his body as stable as possible to prevent further harm.
After approximately two hours, he was brought safely to the surface, where medical teams treated him before he was transferred by ambulance to the University Hospital of Toledo.
As is standard procedure in such cases, the Guardia Civil has launched an investigation into how the incident occurred and why the well had been left uncovered, in order to determine any possible responsibility.
Addressing the situation, Tembleque’s mayor, Jesús Fernández, said: ‘These plots of land are open to the public and anyone can access them, so this can happen.’
The incident inevitably recalls the case of Julen Roselló, the two-year-old who died in 2019 after falling into a narrow borehole in the municipality of Totalán, in Malaga (Andalusia). Despite a 13-day rescue effort, only his body could be recovered.
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Así ha sido el rescate de un niño de tres años que se cayó a un pozo de unos 15 metros de profundidad en Turleque (Toledo). El menor fue trasladado
— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) April 20, 2026
en UVI al Hospital Universitario de Toledo pic.twitter.com/oTAvIN0V9b
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