Man stuck in river 'too embarrassed to call for help'

Xiao Chen got into difficulties when he decided to go for a swim in the Chang Jiang River late at night. The 25-year-old approached what he believed was the edge of the river, only to find that he was sinking up to his waist in silt.

Even though he had a mobile phone on him, Xiao was so embarrassed by his predicament that didn't call for help for four hours, before finally giving up on his attempts to free himself and asking two passing fishermen for help.

It then took emergency services a further seven hours to actually get him free.

Their task was made more difficult due to further embarrassment on Xiao's part - despite the fact that a crew of firemen all stripped down to their underwear to help in the rescue, he refused to undo his own trousers so that he could be more easily pulled free from the mud.


/Metro.co.uk/