Firefighters rescued a man on Tuesday who survived for days after the hinges of a vault cover were apparently tampered with and he wound up 10 feet underground in St. Paul.

The man was conscious and alert, said he’d been there for three to four days and he couldn’t get out on his own, said Deputy Fire Chief Jamie Smith said.

“It appears that he was walking and just fell through, right on or around July Fourth” when it was dark out, Smith said.The vault had a hinged square cover. It appeared the hinge had been tampered with — unknown by whom — and firefighters found the entire cover, along with the man, at the bottom, Smith said.

The department’s Advanced Technical Rescue Team responded about 10:35 a.m. Tuesday. A passerby likely heard the man, who is in his 40s, calling for help, Smith said.

“It is highly unusual,” Smith said, adding that the team trains “for all different scenarios.”

It was in the area of Union Gospel Mission Twin Cities’ men’s campus on East University Avenue near Lafayette Road, though not on its property, said Sarah Peterka, the mission’s community relations director.

A staff member called 911 when they were notified of the situation. The man isn’t someone from their emergency shelter or a program resident, Peterka said.

The fire department team used its rope system to lower a rescuer to the man and raised them both up to ground level.

The area was somewhat remote, near railroad tracks and the Lafayette Bridge, and about a quarter-mile from the ambulance and the rest of the rigs, Smith said. They used an ATV to transport equipment and then bring the man on a stretcher to the ambulance.

The fire department’s EMS evaluated the man at the scene and took him to a hospital in stable condition for further evaluation.

“The outcome of this was certainly what we hope for,” Smith said.

Firefighters resecured the cover on the vault after the rescue. It wasn’t immediately known what agency is responsible for the vault.

St. Paul’s Public Works warned on June 26 that unknown people had been removing storm drain sewer grates and dropping the grates into the storm drains, leaving an open hole. It was not a storm sewer drain where the man was found.

Kathryn Kovalenko contributed to this report.