Man Fell Into Natural Gas Well

A worker fell 40 feet into a narrow storage hole at a natural gas drilling site in Texas.

He spent there three hours before being rescued, officials said.

The site was being prepared for the drilling of a well when the man fell into a hole designed to store pipes. He was hospitalized with scrapes and bruises.

At ground level, the hole is about 3 feet wide and narrows as it descends to about 75 feet. The man lodged in the hole about 40 feet down, said Julie Wilson, a spokeswoman for Chesapeake Energy Corp., manager of the site.

The man was an employee of Koda Rathole, an oil field services company, Wilson said. A company official said the incident was being investigated.