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Manchester, NH 2-Year-Old Survives 20-Foot Plunge Down Laundry Chute

MANCHESTER, NH (CBS) - Two-year-old Cayden Leger just has some bumps and bruises after a terrifying 20-foot plunge down an old laundry chute Thursday morning inside his Manchester, New Hampshire home.

"We just woke up to a blood-curdling scream," said Cayden's mother Melissa Pendlebury. "We could hear him and we couldn't find him."

Curious Cayden had opened up the old laundry chute on the second floor, slid down feet first and wound up stuck in the wall.

Family members followed the yelling. His parents were desperate to rescue him.

"The first thing I could think of us was to try to comfort him until the fire department got here and I just started punching holes in the wall so I could at least hold his hand," said Cayden's father Eric Leger.

Through a hole he punched on the first floor, Cayden's dad could at least see his son.

Cable and other wires run through the chute, and firefighters say those wires broke the boy's fall which likely prevented any serious injury.

Firefighters arrived quickly, opened up a wall in the basement and disentangled those wires in order to reach the little boy.

Cayden is back home after a brief hospital visit, and his dad has a fractured wrist from punching through the wall.

The family has already bolted the laundry chute door shut in order to prevent any similar incidents in the future. The chute is only about 7 by 10 inches and his parents never imagined a child could squeeze inside.

"He's your average boy times a million, he's just so curious I don't think he knows what to do with himself. I didn't sign up for this," said Pendlebury.

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