Buried Kids Father 911 Call: 'Please Hurry ... My Children Are Burried'
A 911 call made by the North Carolina man whose daughter and nephew were buried under more than 20 feet of dirt has been released.
James Levi Caldwell, 7, and Chloe Jade Arwood, 6, were playing near a dirt hole when it collapsed, causing the children to be buried. The girls' father, Jordan Arwood, 31, immediately dialed 911.
"Please hurry ... My children are buried under tons of dirt ... They're buried under tons of clay ... It fell on top of them," he said sobbing into a receiver Sunday night in a 911 call recording obtained by the Associated Press.
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Arwood begged the emergency services to bring heavy construction machines, certain that the children would be unable to breathe.
"The entire wall collapsed on them. Get a crane. Get a bulldozer. Get anything you can, please," he said. "There's no way they can breathe."
Somewhere in the middle of the call, as the dispatcher attempted to calm Arwood down, the father turned to God in prayer.
"Lord lift this dirt up off these children ... so the children will be alive and well ... I have to get my kids. Lord, please," Arwood prayed.
The bodies of 6-year-old Chloe Jade Arwood and 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell were found on Monday, an hour apart from each other. Police searched Arwood's home and discovered firearms and a marijuana plant, according to the AP. Arwood, who was convicted in 2003 of possessing a controlled substance with the intent to sale, is a felon and not permitted to have guns.
Neighbors who were living in the tight knit community of mobile homes heard of the incident and came over to help Arwood start digging. He could not say how the wall had collapsed in the first place.
"They were inside the hole helping to get something and the wall collapsed," he said, adding later, "If this was you and your children in the dirt, you'd be moving the dirt, too."
