New York: A man has been rescued after being trapped inside the walls of a theatre in Syracuse, New York. Firefighters were called at about 07:30 local time (11:30 GMT) after someone was heard banging on the wall and pleading for help.
It is believed the man, 39-year-old, was stuck inside a crawlspace for two days. The rescuers had to cut through the theatre’s walls to get the man out of the wall where he found him trapped there naked.
In a statement on Facebook, the Syracuse fire department said that firefighters “drilled a hole in the wall and utilised a fibre-optic camera” to determine the exact location of the trapped person.
“Firefighters were then able to free the individual after carefully cutting through several layers of drywall and structural clay tile. He was treated and transported to Upstate University Hospital by AMR. His condition is not currently known,” Syracuse fire department said in a Facebook post.
Speaking to Syracuse.com, a local news outlet, Landmark Theatre director Mike Intaglietta said the man had been seen wandering around the building earlier in the week. Employees who saw him lost track of his location and assumed he had left, Intaglietta recalled.
“I don’t know if he was entering to keep warm or to use the bathroom. I don’t know,” BBC quoted Intaglietta as saying.
John Kane, deputy chief of Syracuse fire department, told local US media that the man hid in a crawlspace for two days and became trapped after he fell inside the wall of the theatre’s male bathrooms.
Police said the man appeared to be suffering from a mental illness and would not be charged or identified.