An unidentified man in his 30s was listed in critical condition at Olympic Medical Center on Thursday afternoon after falling into an abandoned water tank on the Rayonier property on the waterfront, the Port Angeles Fire Department said.
Firefighters, who were dispatched at about 9 a.m. to a report of a person stuck inside the water tank in the 700 block of North Ennis Street, found the man holding onto a pipe as he floated in the water inside the tank, unable to touch the bottom of the tank, which was estimated at 40 feet tall.
The man told rescuers he had fallen into the tank about an hour earlier. They said he showed signs and symptoms of hypothermia and had other injuries as a result of the fall.
Although the tank is located on the Rayonier property, it actually belongs to Rayonier Advanced Materials, a manufacturer of high-purity performance fibers located in Jacksonville, Fla., that split from Rayonier in 2014.