ROTTING SKIN: Medics Say Man Spent Five Days Stuck in Water-Filled Cistern

A man who fell into a water-filled cistern and was stuck there for five days looked as if his skin had started to decompose when he was finally treated by medics.Show more

The man was only rescued after managing to work out how he could swim from one cistern to the next where neighbours heard his calls for help on Thursday, 20th April.

The neighbours, who lived in the city of Guadalajara in western Mexico, which is the capital of the state of Jalisco, called police after they were able to locate the person calling.

When the police arrived, he was pulled from the water and said he had been stuck there for five days and medics confirmed his skin was in a terrible state.

Police officer Miguel Castellanos Camacho said: "Once had been the rescue carried out by our colleagues, the Municipal Medical Services were requested, and when we arrived, we had to provide immediate treatment because the skin had already h started to fall away as if it was decomposing.

"This is presumably from being in the water for such a long time."

He confirmed that the man had been carrying out maintenance work when he slipped and fell and was stranded inside with just his head poking above the water throughout the entire five-day ordeal.

A study in 2021 from Binghamton University in New York confirmed that long-term immersion in water can cause permanent skin damage, going against an early belief that skin eventually recovered.

PhD student Niranjana Dhandapani and Associate Professor Guy German found that after 12 hours of immersion, the skin loses plasticity because of reduced ability to hold water. It also depletes both lipids and natural moisturizing factors, which can lead to long-term problems.