This is a Red Currant bush in our yard. When in bloom it just hums with the sound of bees. The yard was basically non-existent, 98% weeds and 2% bare dirt. So we raked and put down lawn seed and began watering to keep it moist. It had been several weeks and the grass seed was coming up nicely and was long enough in spots to need a trim.

This is where this story begins......
It was a Saturday afternoon and Mike and the kids were sitting out on the back patio( just to the left of the above Currant bush) playing with Cortney's kitten. I decided to begin rolling up hoses in preparation for mowing. Jon quickly volunteered to help me in rolling the hose reel up as I fed the hose. I walked across the patio past Mike and Cortney toward the first sprinkler and.........
Well, the next thing I remember is sitting on my backside, looking at bricks and dirt. Now mind you this all took place within several seconds. I looked about and then up and realized I was UNDERGROUND!

Here is a picture taken the next day from our bedroom window. You can see the soil is still wet from watering and yes that is the place I fell through into an abandon cess pool( old style septic tank). Before you say EWWW.... it hadn't been used in decades and was completely dry. This cess pool was built in a 12ft wide circle, lined with bricks and as we found out later, the bottom was brick as well. Large timbers were laid across the opening and then covered a couple feet of soil. The timbers were at least 50+ yrs old and of course being in the yard the watering didn't help keep from rotting. One of the timbers had already fallen into the tank and evidently when I stepped I helped the second timber break.
After I realized I was underground, I panicked and began yelling to Mike for help. He heard me and had heard a noise seconds earlier but the BBQ was blocking his view. He admitted that he chuckled a bit figuring that I'd slipped in the mud and fallen or was tangled in the hose Jon was rolling up. Mike gave Cortney her kitten and stood up, still not seeing me, he stepped around the BBQ to see a hole and no ME! He only had to take several steps and he saw I was at the bottom of the hole. He tried to get closer but the soil was giving way and he was afraid it would cave in on top of me. By this time Jon was running for a ladder and Cortney ran to the neighbor's house( she thought they could help Mike and Jon, she was panicked too) For me it really began to sink in and I was afraid to move, for fear I'd fall further, not knowing if it was an old well or something( okay I panicked!) Mike lowered down the ladder and talk me into climbing out. Once out I realized my shoulder was pretty sore. Jon wanted to investigate the hole, boys, gotta love'm. Mike allowed him to carefully climb down half way to report what he saw. He reported that it was most likely 8 ft deep and 10-12 ft wide and it had a bottom, so wasn't a deep well.

When Jon climbed down inside he made the hole a little bigger. See the new grass coming up among the weeds?

This picture was several weeks later, after Mike and Jon excavated the remaining timbers off the top, opening up the entire hole.

Some of the dirt fell in during excavation. The timber that gave way when I stepped is right behind Cortney. Jon is standing on the bottom of the tank and you can see the dirt is well above his head, he's over 6 ft tall in this picture. He's now 6' 2". We filled this hole in with two dump truck loads of rock, soil mix and topped it off with 3 ft of top soil. Needless to say I still walk around this spot.

We of course had no reference to this tank or any other in ground tanks or wells, in any of the papers we received at closing and the gentleman who owned this place at the time we bought it, died just days before we closed. My shoulder was fine within a few days, nothing serious, Praise the Lord!