Man was locked inside a bank vault while assessing his safety deposit box. Image credit: Elliott Brown, Flickr
A man spent more than nine hours trapped inside a bank vault in New York after he was accidentally locked inside.
The customer was accessing his safety deposit box in the World Diamond Tower when the doors closed and he became trapped inside on Tuesday night.
It is believed that employees were unaware of his presence and closed the door.
The vault automatically locks on a timer and could not be opened by employees.
The New York Fire Department was called to the scene at around 8:45pm.
“Once the door is closed after 7 o’clock, it locks automatically… It’s on a timing mechanism, so it does not reopen until a certain time passes,” Chief of Department John Hodgens told reporters.
Firefighters cut through the vault’s concrete wall but were unable to go further once they hit a metal plate.
“The problem with the plating is we’d have to use our torches on there, which would infect the environment of the person inside the vault,” Hodgens said.
Emergency personnel communicated with the man through a phone system and security cameras inside the vault.
The team were constantly assessing his health during the process, according to Hodgens.
They were not able to free him until around 6:15am the next morning when the vault automatically unlocked.
The man was assessed by emergency services at the scene — they determined he had no injuries and was sent home.
