Naked, Disoriented Man Was Trapped In Theatre's Walls For Days Before Being Rescued

A naked and disoriented man who was reportedly trapped inside a theatre's walls for days was finally rescued by the firefighters on Friday, Nov. 5, leaving investigators gobsmacked how he found himself in the claustrophobic predicament.

On Friday, Nov. 5, workers of the historic Landmark Theatre in Syracuse called the authorities after they reportedly heard someone banging from inside their walls and yelling for help.

The Syracuse Fire Department immediately responded to the scene and drilled a hole in the theatre wall. They then used a fiber-optic camera to determine the person's exact location and figure out the best way to extricate him from the wall.

The responders drilled through several layers of drywall and structural clay tile to finally locate the 39-year-old man stuck inside the theatre walls, according to New York Post.

Mike Intaglietta, the theatre's executive director, said that the theatre employees had noticed the man wandering around the venue earlier in the week. However, after a while, they lost track of him and thought that he had simply left. The man is speculated to have entered the building on Tuesday, Nov. 2.

“I don’t know if he was entering to keep warm or to use the bathroom. I don’t know,” Intaglietta said.

John Kane, Syracuse Fire Deputy Chief, said that the man had hidden in the building's crawlspace before he fell into a gap in the wall of the men’s bathroom and became trapped, Syracuse.com reported.

The man had no visible injuries but was left dehydrated after surviving several days without water or food, Kane said.

The man appeared to be suffering from a mental illness and was transported to Upstate University Hospital for treatment. The officers have not filed any criminal charges against the man.

In a similar but unrelated incident, New South Wales Families, Communities and Disability Services Minister Gareth Ward was reportedly found naked outside his Potts Point apartment and had to be escorted home by police in March 2020.

Officers rushed to the scene after they received a call from the neighbors saying that a naked man was trying to get into their apartment. When officers arrived, they saw Ward reportedly standing in the doorway of another house, which the officers determined was his residence, and escorted him inside, ABC News reported.

Officers found Ward to be disorientated and called paramedics. However, Ward refused to be taken to a hospital. Officers returned to the home an hour later after he was reported to be walking around a common area in his underpants and again escorted him home.

The Minister later released a statement in which he said that he was "disorientated" because he had been under a "general anesthetic for a procedure" earlier that day.