By Hannah Leone
The Beacon-News
AURORA, Ill. — Aurora firefighters rescued a 5-year-old girl who became stuck in the laundry chute of a house on the city’s West Side.
Kennedy Mancilla was stuck in the laundry chute for about a half hour Wednesday. She was plotting how to throw her shoes down the wooden chute when she somehow fell in, feet-first, she said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon.
Kennedy’s family was at a friend’s house in the West Side of Aurora for dinner Wednesday evening when they heard screams, said Kennedy’s mother, Leslie Mancilla.
Mancilla ran toward the screaming, and found her daughter most of the way down a laundry chute in between the ground floor and the basement.
Kennedy was scared. It was dark in the chute, and she was afraid she was going to get hurt, she said.
One of Kennedy’s arms was above her head and the other was pinned at her side, effectively wedging her into the chute, said Aurora Fire Department spokesman Lt. Jim Rhodes.
From what little anyone could see on either side of the chute, it was hard to tell if or how Kennedy was injured, Mancilla said. As her mother, Mancilla said that was the truly scary part.
“Terrifying,” Mancilla said. “Just completely terrifying, because at that point she was screaming, we didn’t know if she had broken something, she kind of had her arm folded, she was saying she couldn’t breathe.”
The Mancillas don’t have a laundry chute in their home. Kennedy had been to this house before and seen the door in the wall but never previously seemed curious about it, her mom said.
The rectangular chute was much wider at the ends than in the middle - Rhodes estimated it was no more than two feet long and 9 inches by 12 inches at the openings, and tapered to 6 inches by 10 inches at its narrowest points. Kennedy was lucky she got stuck where she did. If she’d been much farther down, her head would have been too big for the chute, which could have caused more serious problems, he said.
Her family recognized this too, and made sure she couldn’t slip any farther before firefighters arrived.
“I think we tried for maybe 10 minutes to kind of prop her up because we knew there was no way she’d go all the way through,” Mancilla said.
After a few minutes, the adults realized they weren’t going to be able to get Kennedy unstuck themselves, and at 4:43 p.m. they called 911 for help.
While they were waiting, Mancilla told Kennedy help was coming and reminded her to stay calm and trust the paramedics.
When firefighters got to the house, Kennedy was almost entirely in the chute, but had stopped screaming and calmly answered their questions, Rhodes said.
“She was really brave talking to us,” Rhodes said. “She wasn’t crying or anything.”
They arrived at 4:46 p.m. and had Kennedy out by 5:03 p.m. They dismantled the chute “little pieces at a time,” he said, with firefighters working at both ends using an assortment of hand tools, crowbars, pry bars, screwdrivers and hammers.
It was the first time any of them had to extricate a child from a laundry chute, he said. He estimated Kennedy had been in the chute for about 30 minutes.
Crews transported Kennedy to the hospital for an evaluation after they got her out, but she didn’t have any serious injuries, he said. On Thursday, Kennedy had a few bruises to show for Wednesday night’s excitement, Mancilla said.
Kennedy and her mom are both thankful to the firefighters who got her out, they said. Thursday afternoon Kennedy said it was good to be able to walk around again, and sleeping helped her feel better.
Plus, she got to take the day off from preschool, she said.
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