MANCHESTER — A 2-year-old boy escaped with minor injuries after falling down a narrow laundry chute and becoming entangled in wires, the boy's family and Manchester fire officials said Thursday.

“He's OK,” Jeannie McLaughlin, 18 Carpenter St., said of her nephew, Cayden, who was playing early Thanksgiving morning before climbing into the chute and falling about 20 feet.

McLaughlin said she and her family could hear the boy crying and called 911.

“The operator was awesome. She kept me calm” until firefighters arrived, McLaughlin said.

City District Fire Chief Michael Gamache said fire crews cut a hole in a wall to get to the boy, who had been caught in wires. He was out of the chute 5 minutes after firefighters arrived at the home shortly after 7 a.m. Thursday, Gamache said.

Cayden suffered a cut to his head and some bruises, McLaughlin said.
“Once he saw the fire trucks, he didn't care that he had a cut on his head anymore,” McLaughlin said. “He loves fire trucks.”

McLaughlin said Cayden will typically throw toys down the narrow, 10-inch by 6-inch chute, which she said is used to string wiring for the house now and is no longer used for laundry.

“Honest to God, I don't know how he got in there,” she said. “Thank God for the wires. If he had fallen straight through, it could have been much worse.”

McLaughlin said firefighters on the scene were “great.”

“I can't say enough how great the rescue team was,” she said.

She said the boy was back from Elliot Hospital by 10 a.m. Thursday and that the family planned to go ahead with its Thanksgiving plans.