Firefighters took eight hours to free the man, who was buried six meters below after part of the road collapsed on Via Innocenzo XI, near the Vatican. Emergency services were alerted following a call from one of four alleged gang members who had managed to escape from the collapsed tunnel on Thursday morning. First responders inspect a tunnel discovered after part of a road collapsed in central Rome. Photo: Vigili del Fuoco/AFP/Getty Images A voice was heard from beneath the rubble and as rescuers carried out the complex operation of digging a parallel hole to reach the man, he repeatedly cried out: “Help, I’m begging you to get me out,” according to Italian media reports. The man, who was given liquid food and an oxygen cylinder to help him breathe, was eventually pulled out alive to prolonged applause from a large crowd that had gathered to watch. He was taken to the hospital and was reported to be suffering from critical, but not life-threatening, injuries, police said. Two people from Naples were arrested for resisting a public official and two from Rome for damaging public property, a police spokesman told AFP. “We are still investigating. We cannot rule out that they are thieves. is one of the theories,” he said. Rescuers at the scene in Via Innocenzo XI. Photo: Grzegorz Gałązka/Sipa/Rex/Shutterstock The man, from Rome, had previous convictions for robbery, as did the four other alleged gang members who had been arrested, police told local media. Police believe they were digging through the tunnel, which started under a closed store, to reach a nearby bank vault. They are said to have been excavating every day in order to carry out their robbery on Ferragosto public holiday Monday, an Italian holiday similar to Christmas, taking advantage of bank closures and a semi-deserted Rome.
