North Babylon woman, 77, falls into cesspool, is trapped for 2 hours

A 77-year-old woman fell into the cesspool outside her North Babylon home Wednesday and was trapped there for about two hours until her husband found her, Suffolk police said.

Then the woman was there for about 50 minutes longer as crews from several fire departments, First Precinct police and emergency service police assembled a makeshift pulley system and lifted her out about 7:15 p.m., police said.

The woman had stepped on the cesspool cover outside her Weeks Road residence about 4:30 p.m. and it gave way, police said. She fell about 4 to 6 feet into the waste and could not get out, officials said.

Her husband, Mike Biancardi, told News 12 Long Island he had recently treated the cesspool. He found her about 6:25 p.m.

“All of a sudden I hear her yelling, ‘Mike, I’m in the hole,’ " Biancardi said of his wife, Joan. “When she fell down she must have went down 6 feet. And she got herself up and she was just hanging on the sides, keeping her head above water. It was loaded with waste.”

Experts on extrication arrived from nearby fire departments to help her out, police said. She sustained a non-life-threatening leg injury and was treated at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center in West Islip.