An oil company worker was trapped on a derrick after several parts of the structure broke Monday morning, authorities said.
The incident occurred about 10:30 a.m. on County Road 25 in Mandeville, a Miller County sheriff's office dispatcher said.
The unidentified man — an employee of Louisiana-based oil company Hydrostatic Oil Field Testing Inc. — suffered multiple injuries including two broken legs and one injured arm, Miller County sheriff's office spokesman Larry Pritchett said.
The man is estimated to be about 35 years old, according to Pritchett.
It took about two hours for authorities to figure out how they were going to retrieve the worker from the tower, because firetruck ladders could not be used, Pritchett said.
At about 1:10 p.m., he said, rescuers from multiple agencies were able to recover the man by strapping a harness to him and lowering him from the platform to the ground. The man was then taken by ambulance to a helicopter that transported him to a Texarkana hospital.
Several agencies were involved in the rescue, including the Miller County Volunteer Fire Department, the Texarkana-Arkansas Fire Department, the Texarkana-Texas Fire Department, the High Angle Rescue squad from the Texarkana-Texas Fire Department, the REA Electric Company and Miller County's Office of Emergency Management.
"The High Angle Rescue squad that responded done an excellent job, and I commend them for their job today," Pritchett said.
Read more in Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.