As of: March 6, 2024, 11:27 p.m
By: Nico Reiter
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In an emergency, a university lecturer showed a cool head.
With the items in the room, she freed herself after seven hours.
Cambridge-Dr.
Krisztina Ilko, a lecturer at Queens College, Cambridge, actually works in the field of art history.
She lives in a tower that is part of the historic university buildings.
The buildings date back to 1448, writes the university.
At the end of February, Ilko found herself in an unexpected situation when she was locked in her medieval tower bathroom.
Queens College consists of buildings that date back to 1448 © Alistair Laming/Imago
Attempts to escape fail - locked in the bathroom for seven hours
A plumber had accidentally damaged the door latch, making the heavy wooden door impossible to open.
Ilko found himself trapped in a windowless room surrounded by stone walls.
She told
BBC News
in an interview that she feared being trapped in this situation for days as someone would only come to clean the room in five days.
“I tried to hit the door with the shower head, break it open and call for help, but no one heard me,” said the 33-year-old.
Woman uses eyeliner and cotton swab to pick locks
Although her field of expertise wasn't directly helpful, it was ultimately her ingenuity that got her out of her predicament.
Ilko was inspired by her childhood hero MacGyver, an inventive secret agent.
She searched the room for items that could help her escape and found them.
Using eyeliner, she pressed the bolt down and formed a hook out of a cotton swab with which she was finally able to open the lock.
After seven hours in captivity, Dr.
Ilko to leave the room.
“When I finally got out and the door opened, I was in a frenzy because I never thought it would work,” the lecturer explained in an interview.
“I was expecting to be in there for five days or more, but I made it out!” Similar situations exist all over the world: A man was recently locked up at the airport for two hours, and another passenger was stuck in the airplane toilet.
Her successful escape caught the attention of the internet
After her rescue, she shared a photo of herself and her improvised tools on X, formerly Twitter.
The online community was impressed by her ingenuity.
“You should audition for the next MacGyver reboot,” one user suggested.
“Note to self: always have eyeliner and an ear swab with you,” another user said.
Another user noted: “I will never question again when women say they cannot survive without eyeliner.” Perhaps Stiftung Warentest should take another function of eye makeup into account in the test in the future.
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Thanks to her lockpicking skills, Dr.
Krisztina Ilko is now a minor celebrity at her university and is happy about the many congratulations.
The lock has since been removed to avoid putting anyone in a similar situation.
(No)
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