All it took was an eyeliner and an ear cleaner.
A historian in the United Kingdom was trapped in the bathroom of a medieval tower: the Hungarian researcher was stuck for seven hours in a windowless washroom protected by thick walls and a heavy wooden door. He finally got out of the small place with a brilliant trick, he broke the lock with the eyeliner and earpick he had at hand and freed himself.
The 33-year-old Dr. Krisztina Ilkó's adventure took place in Cambridge: the university researcher there lived in the former room of the 16th-century philosopher Erasmus. On Thursday, a plumber repairing the shower forgot to tell the woman that he had broken the lock in the bathroom.
Krisztina then went into the bathroom and closed the door without realizing it. The lock was stuck, and the walls of the windowless room were too thick for anyone to hear her yelling.
"I tried to remember how long a person can survive on only water, and I hoped I wouldn't die there," the woman said.
Krisztina knew that she could only rely on herself, because the cleaning staff would certainly not have come before Monday.
The plumber broke the lock in the bathroom and forgot to tell me. I went in, got locked in. The door is solid wood and wouldn't break. I was stuck for 7 hours (I thought I'd be there for days, as no one could hear). Finally, I handpicked the lock with an eyeliner and an ear pick. pic.twitter.com/oDyw73bQ4t
— Dr Krisztina Ilko (@krisztina_ilko) February 23, 2024
"I tried to break the door with the shower head and yelled, but it didn't work," he recalled.
He tried to break down the door with his own weight, but was unsuccessful and also bruised his shoulder.
After some thought, he "called in" his favorite childhood hero, MacGyver, and the scientist tried to pick the lock with eyeliner and an earpick.
He reached into the lock with the eyeliner and pressed it down, while he unhooked the lock with the earpick bent into a hook and got out of the bath seven hours later.
"It was an uplifting feeling to get out, I didn't think the method would work," said the historian.
The lock has since been removed from the bathroom door to prevent the accident from happening again.
Cambridge academic escapes toilet using eyeliner and cotton https://t.co/LBSki8NTRu
— BBC Look East (@BBCLookEast) March 2, 2024
Cover image: The Hungarian futós extricated himself from his predicament
Source: Wikipedia/Andrew Dunn