Man gets stuck inside truck stop sign during service call

A man got stuck inside of a truck stop sign more than 130 feet in the air during a service call in Illinois last month. 

AJ Gow was working on the elevated sign at a Petro truck stop in Wilmington, Illinois when a series of unfortunate events led to him being stuck inside for multiple hours on the morning of July 21st. 

“It was a hot day. There was really no air, so I sent my co-worker down. I said, ‘go get me some water and my battery-powered fan.’ He went down, and on his way back up, the lift had an issue and could not make it back,” Gow said to KBTX3.

After four hours, his crew was still unable to fix the lift, and Gow says the time spent in the hot sign without water left him feeling “like crap,” so he told his crew to call emergency services. 

“I don’t care what you have to do, get me down,’” he said. Gow says he then started to worry something might happen to him, so he started recording videos for his kids and wife, just in case. 

“God forbid, if something were to actually happen, it’s my final words. So, essentially, a goodbye without saying goodbye,” Gow said.

The Wilmington Fire Department eventually responded, but Gow was not successfully rescued until another lift was borrowed from a different work site. By the time Gow was back on the ground, the whole ordeal had lasted about six hours. 

“I’m so fortunate that it turned out the way it did, and I’m able to look back in hindsight and laugh at it,” he said.

Gow is already back to repairing elevated signs, but he says he now tends to stay in the lift bucket to avoid getting stranded again.