Trapped 8-Year-Old Signaled For Aid

Trapped in the bottom of a deep pit atop a towering sandstone ridge at Arches National Park, an 8-year-old boy signaled rescuers to his location with makeshift flares: his socks and shoes, filled with red sand, tossed up out of the hole and into the air.

National Park Service rangers extracted the boy, whose name was not released, Monday night after he spent approximately three hours stuck in a narrow “pothole” about 8 feet deep near Devils Garden Campground. The youngster was unhurt.

Centuries of rain, wind, snow and ice have scoured pockmarks in the soft sandstone fins, although rangers say such a deep, well-like hole is unusual.