Firefighters rescue man trapped in portable toilet in Gettysburg

GETTYSBURG — Authorities say a man was rescued after a tree that fell during high winds trapped him inside a portable toilet at Gettysburg National Military Park in south-central Pennsylvania.

The Barlow Volunteer Fire Department said on its Facebook page that the crew was called to Little Round Top shortly before 4 p.m. Friday. Assistant Chief Joe Robinson told the York Daily Record that they found a tree atop a vehicle but no one inside, and park rangers then told them the tree had trapped a man in the portable toilet.

Robinson said crews treated it like a car entrapment, cutting away the tree with a chain saw and then cutting the portable toilet open with another saw.

“He was very lucky,” said Robinson, who has been a volunteer firefighter for three decades. “It was a large tree, and it just missed striking him. It could have been very serious.”

The man was alert and talking to EMS as he was loaded into an ambulance to be taken to Gettysburg Hospital with injuries not considered life-threatening.

Emergency crews across the region were responding to many calls of downed trees and wires as well as fires during the windy conditions, officials said.