Electrician Trapped 130 Feet in the Air Records ‘Final Goodbye’ to Wife and Kids

A Chicago-area electrician thought he might not make it home to his family after becoming trapped for more than six hours inside a towering gas station sign in Illinois.

AJ Gow was working inside a 130-foot-tall sign in Wilmington on July 21 when the lift being used to reach him suddenly malfunctioned.

The day was brutally hot, and Gow said there was almost no airflow inside the enclosed sign structure.

“It was a hot day. There was really no air, so I sent my co-worker down,” Gow told ABC 7. “I said, ‘Go get me some water and my battery powered fan.’”

But when his co-worker tried to return, the lift failed.

“He went down, and on his way back up the lift had an issue and could not make it back,” Gow said.

At first, crews tried to fix the lift.

But as the hours dragged on and the heat continued to build, Gow’s condition began getting worse.

By around 2 p.m., he had already been trapped inside the sign for about four hours.

“Eventually I started to feel like crap,” he said. “And I told him, you know, call EMS. I said, I don’t care what you have to do, get me down.”

That was when the situation became terrifying.

Gow said he began to believe there was a real chance he might not survive.

“In the moment, it was getting hairy,” he said. “I mean I was getting — I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

With no quick rescue in sight, Gow pulled out his phone and began recording messages for his wife and children.

“God forbid if something were to actually happen — it was my final words,” he said. “So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye.”

Emergency crews with the Wilmington Fire Protection District arrived at the gas station near Lorenzo Road and Southwest Frontage Road and quickly realized this was no ordinary rescue.

Gow was stranded roughly 130 feet above the ground inside an enclosed section near the top of the sign.

Fire officials said there were no ladders or stairs built into the structure, meaning rescue crews could not simply climb up to him.

The sign was also too tall for the fire department’s ladder trucks to reach.

With few options, crews launched a drone near the opening of the sign so they could keep visual contact with Gow while a rescue plan was developed.

Firefighters were eventually able to lower and remove the malfunctioning lift from the base of the tower.

But they still needed another machine tall enough to reach him.

Crews located a replacement boom lift in Joliet and had it rushed to the scene with an Illinois State Police escort.

Once the lift arrived, members of the Division 15 Technical Rescue Team and a machine operator went up to Gow’s location.

They were able to transfer him from the sign onto the boom lift and finally bring him back to the ground.

After more than six frightening hours, Gow was safe.

“The victim was returned to safety with no victim or rescuer injuries,” the fire district said.

Deputy Chief Todd Friddle later said the rescue required some unusual methods because of the height and design of the sign.

“Although unconventional means were used to effect the rescue due to circumstances, everyone went home safe and uninjured,” he stated.

The experience has not scared Gow away from his job.

He told ABC 7 that he has already returned to work repairing signs high above the ground.

But he has made one major change.

From now on, Gow says he plans to stay inside his bucket while working at extreme heights so he does not risk becoming trapped like that again.