An electrician recorded his final goodbyes after becoming stuck inside a stifling petrol station sign at a dizzying height.
AJ Gow was fixing the advert with a colleague who lowered themselves to the ground to get some water on a baking day in Illinois.
But when the co-worker tried to return on the mechanical lift a malfunction took it out of action, leaving Gow trapped all alone dangling in the air at 130 feet.
‘In the moment, it was getting hairy, I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. And yeah, I was freaking out,’ he said.
He was inside the sign for more than four hours with the temperature rising by the second.
‘Eventually, I started to feel like crap and I told him, you know, call EMS,’ Gow said.
He shouted down to his co-worker to do whatever was necessary to get him down.
After hours of inaction and no replacement lift incoming, Mr Gow began to fear the worst.
‘I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen,’ he said.
‘God forbid if something were to actually happen, it was my final words,’ he explained. ‘So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye.’
Firefighters ladders only went up to 100 feet, with Gow unable to safely climb down to reach them.
He was finally rescued from the ordeal when a suitable replacement lift and after a gruelling six hours he was finally back on terra firma.
‘Although unconventional means were used to effect the rescue due to circumstances, everyone went home safe and uninjured yesterday,’ Wilmington Fire Protection District Deputy Chief Todd Friddle told PEOPLE.
Gow revealed that he was ‘not prepared’ for the incident to attract as much speculation and media attention as it did.
‘I had no idea that I was going to be stuck up here for that long, or was going to be anywhere near that kind of scenario,’ he told WABC.