Electrician trapped for hours in 130-foot-high sign had recorded ‘final words’ for wife and kids

An electrician who was stranded for more than six hours inside a 130-foot-tall sign at an Illinois gas station had recorded a final goodbye to his wife and kids because he was so terrified he wouldn’t make it out alive.

AJ Gow became trapped inside the swaying, sweltering sign last month after his lift malfunctioned while he was working on it at the station in Wilmington, about an hour southwest of Chicago.

“In the moment, it was getting hairy. I mean I was getting — I was genuinely getting scared, and I didn’t know what was going to happen. And yeah, I was freaking out,” he recalled to ABC 7 Chicago.

“God forbid if something were to actually happen – it was my final words. So essentially a goodbye without saying goodbye,” he said of the messages he recorded for them.

Gow, who works for a company that services signs, said what started as a routine job on July 23 quickly turned into a potential tragedy.

“It was a hot day. There was really no air, so I sent my co-worker down. I said, ‘Go get me some water and my battery-powered fan,’” Gow told the outlet.

“He went down, and on his way back up the lift had an issue and could not make it back,” Gow said.

While he was not initially concerned, his condition started to deteriorate after about four hours inside of the narrow sign without water. Meanwhile on the ground, efforts to fix the lift repeatedly failed.

“Eventually I started to feel like crap. And I told [my co-worker], you know, call EMS. I said, I don’t care what you have to do, get me down,” Gow said.

Fire crews rushed to the scene — but their ladders were only 100 feet tall and unable to reach him. 

Eventually, authorities secured another lift from a job site some 17 miles away.

Feeling reinvigorated as the lift rolled up to the scene by police escort, Gow flashed a thumbs-up to a local news helicopter. The clip and his story immediately went viral.

“I was not prepared for it to get as much traction as it did,” Gow said. “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.”

Gow shared on social media after the incident that he was uninjured but suffered from severe dehydration, which required hospitalization.

Gow, who returned to work fixing electric signs, added that he’s grateful he’s now able to look back at the terrifying situation and “laugh at it” — and will make sure he always stays inside his lift bucket.