. >> fire department battalion chief jeff boyles knows the clock is ticking. five. ten.fifteen minutes pass. >> once we started hitting the 15 minute mark, i had to start preparing in my mind that if this person really is five to seven feet down there, not only is that an enormous amount of weight to bear, but there's no oxygen down that deep either. >> once you are under more to four to six minutes, brain death starts to occur. my expectations is this is a body recovery at that point. just horrifying to think of that. >> but life guards, firefighters, police, and the volunteers continue to work feverishly. >> i tried to pull a couple of them out of the whole after about 20 minutes of digging, but they just wouldn't come out. they were in there and they were going to pull him out. >> after 30 minutes of frantic digging, finally news comes from the center of the giant pit. rescuers can see the top of meena's head. >> that was a long time. >> and unbelievably, it looks like he was alive. >> he was taking slow gasping breaths and his ears were blue. which indicated to us th