Inside the 130-Foot Gas Station Sign: A Man’s Haunting Final Message Caught on Camera
Ever wonder what it’s like to be stuck headfirst 130 feet in the air inside a gas station sign? Well, electrician AJ Gow got an unplanned masterclass in high-altitude entrapment—and let me tell you, it’s no sunny day picnic. On a scorching July afternoon in Chicago, AJ’s simple request for water and a fan turned into a six-hour ordeal when the lift decided to play dead, leaving him stranded inside that towering sign with nothing but vertigo and some seriously panicked emergency responders looking like tiny action figures below. You think being stuck in rush hour traffic is rough? Try being trapped with a straight drop beneath you and no escape in sight. AJ’s chilling footage and heart-stopping story are a vivid reminder: sometimes, the sky isn’t the limit—it’s the trap. Ready to lift yourself out of curiosity? LEARN MORE
A man who was stuck in a sign for six hours recorded spine-tingling footage from inside while trapped 130ft in the air.
Electrician AJ Gow was servicing a towering gas station sign on a hot July 21 in Chicago, USA, when he sent his colleague down to fetch water, but the lift wouldn’t go all the way back up, leaving him completely stranded.
“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,” AJ told ABC 7.
As the hours ticked by, Gow seriously feared for his life, and footage from inside the cramped sign, shared on YouTube by Inside Edition, shows just how precarious his situation was.
Though he gave an optimistic thumbs up to news cameras, his view from 130ft in the air is vertigo-inducing, with nothing but a straight drop down below him.
The panicked emergency services on the ground appeared like stick men from his perspective, while the surrounding fire engines and ambulances looked like children’s toys.
It’s certainly not somewhere you want to be anytime soon.
AJ’s view from the sign (YouTube/Inside Edition)
How AJ Gow was rescued from sign
Fire truck ladders were only able to reach 100ft, leaving a 30ft gap to save Gow, and efforts to repair their lift were in vain.
After four hours without water and with dread setting in, Gow even recorded a message for his wife and two children in case the worst happened.
“Eventually, I started to feel like crap. And I told him, you know, call EMS. I said, I don’t care what you have to do, get me down,” AJ said.
“In the moment, it was getting hairy. I mean I was getting – I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. And yeah, I was freaking out.
“God forbid if something were to actually happen – it was my final words. So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye.”
Thankfully, a tall enough lift was found on a building site in the near by city of Joliet and Gow was eventually returned to solid land.
Wilmington Fire Protection District said: “Fire District personnel responded arriving on scene at the intersection of Lorenzo Rd and the Southwest Frontage Rd to find that a contractor conducting work was stranded approximately 130 feet above ground inside an enclosed sign structure toward the top of a sign pole.
tAJ was finally rescued after six hours (YouTube/InsideEdition)
“The boom lift was brought to the scene with an Illinois State Police escort where it was then moved from its trailer and into place.
“Division 15 Technical Rescue Team members along with a machine operator ascended to the victim’s location and transferred him from the sign to the lift.
“The victim was returned to safety with no victim or rescuer injuries.”
Gow will go back to his job fixing signs in the sky, but has sworn he won’t be getting out of the lift bucket ever again.
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