Boy trapped under concrete discharged

Trapped under a slab of concrete and struggling to breathe, a 14-year-old boy confessed his sins to God as he waited for rescue, the teen said Thursday.

Robert Maust, 14, left a hospital Thursday, less than two days after the accident. He was treated for cuts and bruises but did not break any bones.

He told reporters at a news conference at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh that he was sitting on the upright slab, used as a retaining wall along a roadway, and jumped from it across a ditch to retrieve a ball.

Then he heard a "crack sound." The slab pushed him across the ditch, pinning him against the bank. It took rescuers two hours to free him from under the 3-by-6-foot slab.

"I spent two minutes trying to move just so I could breathe," he said. "I was a little worried. I didn't say anything. Then I said the Act of Contrition and prayed to God."

A 3-inch tree root and a rock helped prevent all 3,800 pounds of the slab from bearing down on him. Rescuers inflated air bags under the slab to relieve pressure until they could lift it with a harnesses.

Middlesex Township and the Saxonburg Area Authority said they were investigating.