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Device to keep kids from falling into wells

mogley98
I was thinking after hearing the news of the boy in Spain who fell into a 10 inch well casing. Also remembering news of other children falling into wells, I think baby Jessica fell into a 8 inch well casing.

Why not place a device at the top of the well casing that would prevent solids from passing down. I envision a cone shaped series of plates that would expand and tighten like "Chinese handcuffs" if a solid attempted to pass through.

Of course I guess they could also just cap them.
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Comments

15 comments

Date Votes
  • mrmike08075
    My grandfather had his wells covered with concrete caps / slabs...

    Only makes sense for a bunch of real world reasons.

    Had an uncle with an actual well house.

    Mike
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  • Mr. Perfect
    IMO, more effort should be put into rescue devices/means. You're always going to have some person falling down a well, no matter the precautions you take.
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  • mogley98
    A way to use compressed air to "blow" them out of the well once down there LOL

    OK but IF every well had to have a restricter of some sort preventing anything from going deeper than a few ten or whatever feet we wouldn't need to rescue them at a cost hundred or a thousand times the cost of the restricter quote:Originally posted by Mr. Perfect
    IMO, more effort should be put into rescue devices/means. You're always going to have some person falling down a well, no matter the precautions you take.
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  • Mr. Perfect
    quote:Originally posted by mogley98
    A way to use compressed air to "blow" them out of the well once down there LOL

    OK but IF every well had to have a restricter of some sort preventing anything from going deeper than a few ten or whatever feet we wouldn't need to rescue them at a cost hundred or a thousand times the cost of the restricter quote:Originally posted by Mr. Perfect
    IMO, more effort should be put into rescue devices/means. You're always going to have some person falling down a well, no matter the precautions you take.

    Or, just put a heavy stone or cover over it. No need to invent anything in that regard.
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  • asop
    In our area any abandoned wells must be filled with concrete!
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  • US Military Guy
    Water in a "good" well does not come from the sky or surface run off.

    In fact, those sources of water can damage an otherwise "clean" well.

    Wells get their good water from below the surface.

    In this modern time we live in, hardly any civilized society drops a bucket on a rope into the well in order to pull up water with a windlass. We use pumps.

    There is no sound reason for a well to be open at the top (even with an above ground pump). Of course, that is my opinion and I have never fallen into a well.

    [;)]
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  • mrmike08075
    What's that lassie - what's that girl...

    Timmy fell down the well???

    Mike
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  • spasmcreek
    around our country are some old well pits around 20-25Ft deep and about 4ft in diameter..in the bottom is a driven point and a pump cylinder .i have never found out how these were dug back in the horse and buggy days with out collapsing in our sandy soil...they are are perfectly round and perfectly straight ..lined with red brick or smaller curved concrete pieces.. i have filled a couple to make them safe
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  • He Dog
    Seems obvious any open well or pipe should be covered even with a grill. I do remember collecting salamanders in the bottom of an old stone lined well.
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  • 35 Whelen
    When I was a kid, we had a big well behind the house. The device that kept me from falling into it was a piece of plywood, and being told to stay the hell away from the well to begin with.
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  • kidthatsirish
    A simple cover would suffice.
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  • nmyers
    Call me overprotective, but I never let a 2 year old out of my sight, or get more than 10' away.

    Neal
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  • remingtonoaks
    quote:Originally posted by nmyers
    Call me overprotective, but I never let a 2 year old out of my sight, or get more than 10' away.

    Neal


    That's not being overprotective, that's just good parenting... You never let a child out of your sight that doesn't know the dangers of the world yet
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  • Horse Plains Drifter
    quote:Device to keep kids from falling into wellsHow about a responsible adult's eyes?
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  • Wild Turkey
    When I was young and lived on a farm well out in the country they drilled an oil well about 100 yards from our house.

    It was a dry hole so they pulled most of the pipe out but left the well casing in place, sticking up about a foot above ground.

    My younger brothers had some fireworks and decided to drop some firecrackers down the well to see what happened.

    Nice "boom" with echos resulted.

    So they tried a "pop-bottle" rocket.

    Watched it go down, then saw that when it "popped" it set off a big ball of fire coming up the pipe.

    They ducked back in time to avoid getting burned but that was enough for dad. He went out and dug down below plowing depth and capped the well, then buried it and went on farming.

    A couple of years later he saw two guys walking around in the field. They said they had to mark the well with a 4'x 4' pipe enclosure and couldn't find the well.

    Dad grabbed a shovel and showed them the cap and they put the cage in place and went on their way.

    The next year the cage jumped up and moved to the end of the field, and a couple of years later it just wandered off.

    Nobody's ever checked on it since[;)]
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