One of the notes that a man locked inside an ATM slipped out through the receipt slot hoping that someone would notice KZTVBaffled by the note, the person could not figure out what to do. It just so happened that a Corpus Christi police officer was driving by, so the person flagged down the officer and showed him the note, reported the New York Times.
The police officer, too, initially thought it was a prank, but as he listened closely, he could hear faint sounds coming from the ATM, so he called for back-up.
It would take another hour for the police to track the man's boss, verify his identity and then rescue him from his prison.
“Honestly, we can't say it's never happened,” Gena Pena, spokesperson for Corpus Christi Police Department, told the New York Times. “But 95% of people will have their phone on them.”
However, the idea of slipping notes to bank customers was “pretty ingenious” in Pena's opinion.
Police did not file a report against the contractor as no criminal act had been committed, Pena said.
The man was not physically hurt, but the same cannot be said for his dignity.
“He is mortified,” said Pena. “He just wants it to go away.”The popular metaphor “Money imprisons us all” became a real-life experience for a man in Texas, US who was trapped inside an ATM booth for hours before he was rescued – by slipping out notes asking for help, reports Gizmodo.
The incident took place at the drive-through ATM booth of the Bank of America in Corpus Christi, Texas on Wednesday afternoon. The “victim”, a contractor, was there fixing the lock in a room connected to the ATM when he locked himself in.
Unable to call for help as he had left his mobile phone in his car, the man, whose identity was not revealed by police, spent the next two hours slipping notes out of the drive-through ATM's receipt slot asking for help whenever a customer came in for a transaction.
As luck would have it, most of the bank's patrons who came to the ATM booth thought the notes were part of a joke.
However, one customer paused to think after receiving one of the notes, which read: “Please help I'm stuck in here and I don't have my phone please call my boss at..."
One of the notes that a man locked inside an ATM slipped out through the receipt slot hoping that someone would notice KZTVBaffled by the note, the person could not figure out what to do. It just so happened that a Corpus Christi police officer was driving by, so the person flagged down the officer and showed him the note, reported the New York Times.
The police officer, too, initially thought it was a prank, but as he listened closely, he could hear faint sounds coming from the ATM, so he called for back-up.
It would take another hour for the police to track the man's boss, verify his identity and then rescue him from his prison.
“Honestly, we can't say it's never happened,” Gena Pena, spokesperson for Corpus Christi Police Department, told the New York Times. “But 95% of people will have their phone on them.”
However, the idea of slipping notes to bank customers was “pretty ingenious” in Pena's opinion.
Police did not file a report against the contractor as no criminal act had been committed, Pena said.
The man was not physically hurt, but the same cannot be said for his dignity.
“He is mortified,” said Pena. “He just wants it to go away.”
One of the notes that a man locked inside an ATM slipped out through the receipt slot hoping that someone would notice KZTVBaffled by the note, the person could not figure out what to do. It just so happened that a Corpus Christi police officer was driving by, so the person flagged down the officer and showed him the note, reported the New York Times.
The police officer, too, initially thought it was a prank, but as he listened closely, he could hear faint sounds coming from the ATM, so he called for back-up.
It would take another hour for the police to track the man's boss, verify his identity and then rescue him from his prison.
“Honestly, we can't say it's never happened,” Gena Pena, spokesperson for Corpus Christi Police Department, told the New York Times. “But 95% of people will have their phone on them.”
However, the idea of slipping notes to bank customers was “pretty ingenious” in Pena's opinion.
Police did not file a report against the contractor as no criminal act had been committed, Pena said.
The man was not physically hurt, but the same cannot be said for his dignity.
“He is mortified,” said Pena. “He just wants it to go away.”