Mudslide rescue workers pluck 4-year-old boy to safety - Incredible video

Hopes of finding any more survivors from a massive mudslide that killed at least 24 people in Washington have been waning, but this incredible footage shows the moment one 4-year-old child was dramatically plucked to safety.

The video, released by Snohomish County's Helicopter Rescue Team, shows workers extracting little Jacob Spillers, who was trapped in mud the consistency of freshly poured concrete.

"He didn't cry. He didn't move. He just stood there and was a very composed little man," Ed Hrivnak, a volunteer pilot for the Snohomish County Helicopter Rescue Team, told CNN on Tuesday.

Jacob was upstairs when the mudslide swept through the house. His father and three half-siblings have yet to be found.

The devastating mudslide, has destroyed dozens of homes, killed at least 24 people and left hundreds unaccounted for.

The helicopter team who found Jacob was one of the first rescue groups to arrive on the horrific scene in the hours after the mudslide occurred on March 22.

"He was stuck. He was sunk into that mud so well that his pants came right off," Ed Hrivnak, a member of the Pierce County Fire and Rescue team, told a local news outlet. "The mud had compacted around him and had created such suction that he couldn't move."

Rescue teams are still searching for 176 missing people in the rural region hit by the mudslide. However, Washington Gov Jay Inslee is not optimistic about the reality of finding survivors at this point.

"The force of this landslide just defies imagination. The cars that have been found have been just, literally, twisted into corkscrews and torn in half," he said, per CNN.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/27/washington-mudslide-rescue-jacob-spillers_n_5040554.html?1395913565

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