Trapped in shop wall for three days

A man in Colorado has finally been freed, after spending three days trapped in the cavity wall of a department store. His cries for help were eventually heard by store staff, who called firefighters. They used a sledgehammer to make a hole on the outside of the building, and pulled him free.

In the latest installment of bizarre newsfrom around the world, Times-Call reported that staff at the Marshall's store had first heard a man yelling on Monday morning, but it took them until Tuesday to work out that he was calling through a hole in the back wall and needed help. He pushed notes through the wall into the shop asking for help, which weren't found until after his rescue. One of the notes featured Saturday's date, so he could have been there for three days.

The BBC reported that 35-year-old Paul Felyk had got into the wall from the roof. However, they offered no explanation as to why he'd been on the roof of the shop in the first place. He is recovering in hospital and police investigations continue.

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Trapped in store

It's certainly an unusual way to be trapped, but he's not the first to have made headlines after getting stuck in a shop. In October David Willis from Texas had been browsing in Waterstones in Trafalgar Square, and it was only when he made it downstairs and to the front of the shop that he realised it had been closed for the night. He spent two hours in the store, and after calling security and the police he used Twitter to alert the world to the fact he was stuck.

Back in February, a woman in Toronto found herself trapped in a bag store that had been locked up for the evening. She live-tweeted the ordeal and became the subject of a mock campaign to 'Free Emily', before she managed to attract the attention of someone in the building next-door and managers returned to free her.

In January last year, a 73-year old French woman was trapped in a supermarket overnight. She had been using the toilets just before closing time, and emerged to discover the doors were locked. She set off the alarms several times, but as it was New Year's Eve, nobody came to rescue her until the following day.

Not all these incidents are quite so innocent. In February, a burglar broke into a jewellery shop in Utah, but after tripping the alarm and failing to break into two display cases, he tried to leave. After failing to break out of the front door, police arrived, so he sat on the floor and had a cigarette while he waited for the store owners to let the police in.

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