A third year got stuck in the toilets for 40 minutes today

Third year linguist, Ned Smith, went to the loo mid-German seminar earlier this afternoon  before getting stuck in the lower ground male toilets at Bedford Way.

Ned told The Tab: “I noticed when I tried to leave and it wouldn’t open. I gave it quite a few goes and tried to force it but finally resigned to the fact that nothing was going to work. I was a bit worried it would take a few hours (because I have a tonne of work at the moment) but I knew Joy would come to my rescue so wasn’t too panicky!”

911

Ned text his classmate, Joy Gribbin, as soon as he realised the situation he was in. This was followed by an announcement made to the class about it which resulted in his heroic tutor coming to the rescue. Unfortunately, nothing was working: kicking doors and trying to unpick locks with coins was all useless. As a last resort, security from the building was called in the toilets, but again, to no avail.

Joy said, “first of all I didn’t believe it and initially thought I would leave him in there. But then I wanted to laugh at him in person so I went down and he actually was stuck and we communicated via the locked door.

Ned added: “the guys were like, ‘I think we’re gonna need the maintenance man – there’s no way we can open this’ and then a couple of minutes later they said ‘the maintenance man’s gone home…'”

Get the lube out

Forty minutes later, Ned was freed, however nobody was quite sure how it happened.

Joy speculated: “I think in the end he needed to use WD40 to get out and two security guards helped him. Imagine that, three men and a can of WD40 lubricant in one tiny toilet, anyway good thing is he got out in the end.”

Ned concluded: “I didn’t actually get a chance to ask how they did in it the end. I think they took the lock apart from the outside. They were using screw drivers etc. I’m not a particularly DIY-y guy”