Customer spends night trapped in vault after he’s locked in, New York officials say

A customer trapped in a vault overnight was freed when the doors automatically opened the next morning, New York rescuers said.

Officials received a call at around 8:45 p.m. Oct. 24 reporting the man trapped inside, John Sarrocco with the New York City Fire Department said in a news conference broadcast by CBS News and WABC.

The man was accessing his safety deposit box when he was accidentally locked inside, Sarrocco said.

Police and fire rescuers responded to World Diamond Tower at 580 Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan and faced DGA Security’s vault, which has concrete walls reinforced with steel plating, Sarrocco told WABC.

McClatchy News could not immediately reach DGA Security for comment on the incident.

The vault’s doors operate on a timer. Once the door closes past 7 p.m., the timer mechanism activates, and the vault won’t open again for a set amount of time, Sarrocco said in the news conference.

McClatchy News reached out to the fire department to clarify how the doors were shut while the man was inside but did not immediately receive a response.

Rescuers arrived that night to the Diamond District building and began the process of breaching the 30 inches of concrete, using water to minimize the dust as they sawed through the vault, Sarrocco said in the news conference.

When they reached the metal plating, they re-considered their course of action, the fire department said in a Facebook post.

“The problem with the plating is we would have to use our torches on there which would affect the environment of that person inside the vault,” Sarrocco said.

At that point, they decided to hold off and see if the door would open automatically as scheduled in the morning. Sarrocco said the lock could not be manually overridden from the outside.

Throughout the night, rescuers stayed in contact with the man using a phone and video footage. He camped out in the 20-by-40-foot vault until around 6:15 a.m., when the doors opened and he was set free, Sarrocco said.

The man was evaluated by emergency medical services and was doing fine, Sarrocco said.

This story was originally published October 25, 2023 at 10:56 AM with the headline "Customer spends night trapped in vault after he’s locked in, New York officials say."