8-year-old recounts ride through culvert

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) -- An 8-year-old boy who was sucked into a culvert during record-setting rain in Duluth says his six-block ride through the storm sewer felt like 100 miles.

Kenny Markiewicz was splashing in the water with his 10-year-old cousin Wednesday when the sewer's powerful current sucked him into the culvert. His mother, Amber Markiewicz, says she heard Kenny's cousin scream, ran to investigate and felt the draw of rushing water into the 2-foot-wide opening.

The boy was pushed through the culvert system underground for a third of a mile before he was spit out in a wooded area near a mobile home park. Kenny's mother tells the Duluth News Tribune that when she was reunited with her son, he told her he just plugged his nose, took a breath and prayed.

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Information from: Duluth News Tribune