A burglary suspect dangled 5 feet off the ground for hours early Sunday after getting stuck in an exhaust shaft at a Baldwin auto dealership, officials said.

Douglas County Sheriff’s officials responded about 6:41 a.m. Sunday to Hansen’s Used Cars, 1255 N. 300 Road, after an employee of a neighboring gasoline station heard someone shouting for help. It took about an hour for police to pull the man out with a rope, said C.T. Hansen, the dealership’s owner.

“They’d pull for a little bit, and he’d be screaming and hollering,” Hansen said. “He was moaning and groaning pretty bad.”

Sheriff’s officials initially said on Sunday that the man had been stuck inside the gasoline station. The two businesses share a building.

Hansen said he was amazed the suspect ever made it into the shaft, which is roughly a square foot in width and once was used as a range hood for a restaurant. It appears the man tried to break a glass window and pry open a door on ground level, then climbed onto the roof and entered the shaft, Hansen said.

“This guy had to really want in the building bad,” he said.

The man was taken to Lawrence Memorial Hospital for treatment afterward.

Lt. Kathy Tate, a sheriff’s spokeswoman, said the suspect wasn’t arrested because of the hospitalization. She said police would forward a report to Dist. Atty. Christine Kenney.

Tate declined to identify the suspect, except to say he’s a Douglas County resident.