Man spends 4 hours in hole

A pensioner who was trapped upside down in a hole for four hours was rescued after a postie saw his feet sticking out.

Albert Hughes, 70, was trying to adjust the water flow to his garden sprinklers when he fell head first into the narrow shaft housing the water meter.

When postwoman Janelle Maury called to deliver letters, she saw his boots and heard his cries for help.

According to the Mirror she said: "His feet were at ground level but that was all I could see. When I was closer I could see he was down there.

"I just couldn't believe he was upside down for that long."

The emergency services arrived but couldn't pull him out by hand.

Firemen put a tripod over the hole, attached a rope and straps to his feet and winched him out of the pit at his home in Spokane in America's Washington state.

He was released later that day from hospital uninjured.