Getting Stuck Stinks

Timothy Cipriani’s idea was simple. He would lower himself into the pizza restaurant from the ventilation duct, rob the cash register, and climb back out. The plan backfired. Either he had been eating too much pizza, or the ventilation duct was too narrow, because he got stuck. He dangled over a deep fryer, his legs hanging out of the ceiling, screaming for help. It took the police thirty minutes to free him. It’s terrible to be stuck. Just ask the eighteen people who rode a roller coaster in Anhui, China.

Inclement weather at the amusement park brought the ride to a halt at the top of the loop, and eighteen passengers were suspended upside down for half an hour! All were rescued, but six had to go to the hospital. How do you say, “I’m about to puke” in Mandarin? And how do the people of Jiangsu Province say, “This stinks!”? That was the opinion of the man who dropped his cell phone into a commode. Rescuers found him crouched over the toilet, his arm submerged up to his shoulder. Workers had to break the porcelain bowl to get him out. I hope the call was worth it.

Odds are you’ve never been stuck in a ventilation duct, on a roller coaster, or in a toilet, but you have been stuck.