A homeless man, tired and soaking wet, was rescued Friday after he took an accidental plunge into the Connoquenessing Creek in Butler.

The man, believed to be in his 60s, was enjoying a cigarette near the railroad tracks on South Cliff Street around noon when trouble befell him, authorities said.

He slid down a hillside and a concrete wall into the water, and could not get out and back up the steep and angled wall.

Butler firefighters arrived for the rescue, eventually fashioning heavy-duty elastic webbing as a life line to gradually pull the man up and out of danger.

A full story will appear in Sunday's Butler Eagle.