Maine Prisoner Trying to Escape Through the Ceiling Reminds Me of Behind the Scenes Radio Story

Prisoner tries escaping Maine Medical through the ceiling

In case you missed it, our friends at CBS 13 reported on a story from yesterday (Tuesday, May 17) involving a Maine prisoner trying to escape police custody by climbing through the ceiling tiles at Maine Medical. Points for creativity, sure, but trying to evade police is probably not a box you want to check off on your bingo card of life.

And while this may be an unorthodox attempt at an escape that failed, it brought up a hilarious memory from when I worked in Tulsa, Oklahoma a few years ago that didn't involve an attempted (and failed) escape through ceiling tiles, but instead, an attempted break-in by an employee.

The station I worked at out in Tulsa was located inside of a massive bank building on the fifth floor. As far as the layout, there was an elevator lobby that leads to the actual lobby of the radio station, only accessible outside of business hours with a key fob that employees had. And this is where our story begins.

After a night out on a Saturday, one of our Promotions Directors (we'll call her 'Andi' to protect the innocent) realized she forgot something in her office that she needed for an event the next morning. At some point late on Saturday night, she popped by the station to retrieve said forgotten item -- she wasn't alone, though. She had brought a friend that she met up with while she was out, and also brought back a belly full of alcohol.

Everything started out fine -- she keyed into the building itself, keyed into the station lobby, keyed into the office area of the station, and began looking for whatever she needed while doing other work. At some point, she needed to use the bathroom, which was located out in the elevator lobby. After finishing her business, she went to go key back into the station lobby from the elevator lobby when she realized....she didn't have her keys.

Now, apparently, what happened next was all caught on the security camera of the elevator lobby -- a video I never saw with my own eyes, but that our boss was shown and freely shared the information with us. On the video, apparently after realizing she didn't have her keys with her, Andi started freaking out a bit and pacing around the elevator lobby.

Then, she took a break from her pacing around and decided to make out with her friend. And that's when she was hit with a brilliant idea -- if she couldn't get through the doors into the lobby, why not try getting over the doors through the ceiling? So, apparently at this point, Andi's friend put her on his shoulders and she started removing ceiling tiles and attempted to scale up into the ceiling like she was hanging on for dear life on an American Ninja Warrior obstacle, thinking she could just crawl through the vents to drop down into her office.

One problem -- inside the ceiling she was trying to climb into above the elevators...was a solid brick wall. After realizing her plan to get inside the office through the vents was a failure, she hopped back down to the ground and decided to make out with her friend again. I mean, it helped her come up with the creative idea of getting in through the ceiling, right?

(Honestly, the way my former boss tells this story is absolutely classic. But I digress.)

The kicker of this whole situation? After about an hour or so of being stuck in the elevator lobby, Andi returned to the bathroom once again. And when she came out? She had keys in hand. She ended up forgetting that she left them on the back of the toilet tank on top of the lid. She keyed back into her office, finished up her work, and walked back out by the broken ceiling tiles on the floor and the scuff marks left on the wall from her sneakers and rode the elevator to the ground floor and left the building.

In conclusion, between Andi's story and that Maine prisoner's failed attempt to evade police, it's pretty safe to say trying to get from Point A to Point B through a ceiling only works in the movies.