'You don't hear that too often,' says Texas officer who responded to man trapped in ATM
When Officer Richard Olden first heard the call that a man was stuck in an ATM on Wednesday, he and his colleagues were both intrigued and suspicious.
"You don't hear that too often," the Corpus Christi, Texas, police officer told As It Happens guest host Laura Lynch.
"Myself and some of my other co-workers were on our way to that location to actually see this. We wanted to see this."
When he arrived, there were already a couple officers on the scene and the bank was shut down for remodeling.
"So I'm looking around for, you know, the candid camera ... looking around to see if someone was filming with their cellphone making a joke out of it," he said.
"But I actually heard his voice coming from the ATM machine"
Having ruled out a prank, Olden thought it might be a crime.
"We thought in the beginning that he might be a burglar that actually got caught and he couldn't get out," he said.
In fact, he was a technician who became trapped while servicing the bank's automated teller machine, and he'd left his phone and keys locked inside his truck.
The man had been inside the machine for three hours, shouting and passing notes begging for help through the machine's receipt slot.
His appeals were mostly ignored by passersby who also presumed it was part of an elaborate prank.
Police got in contact with the man's supervisor, who confirmed his identify.
"So it ended up that we got permission from his supervisor to actually kick the door in to get him out of the room," Olden said. "He was thankful that we got him out. He was thirsty. He was doing OK, though."
With files from Associated Press