89-Year-Old Gets Trapped In Bank Locker For Over 17 Hours After Staff Forgets About Him

An elderly man in India had to spend an entire night inside a bank locker after he accidentally got locked inside it. The 89-year-old man with diabetes and Alzheimers was eventually found unconscious when he was rescued after more than 17 hours, according to reports.

V. Krishna Reddy, an elderly businessman from Hyderabad, a city in the southern Indian state of Telangana, went missing Monday, and his family reported the matter to the police.

Since Reddy told his family that he was going to a bank, police investigated the surveillance footage in the area. Officers saw footage of him entering the Union Bank of India in Jubillee Hills, in the western part of the city, but did not see him leaving. Investigators then checked inside the bank and found him lying unconscious inside the locked locker room Tuesday, a day after he was reported missing, New Indian Express reported.

"Suspecting that he might be inside, the staff opened the locker room, and we found him lying inside. He is a diabetic patient and was very weak. We immediately informed the family and shifted him to a hospital," Dali Naidu, a senior investigating officer said, as reported by The Times of India. Reddy was discharged from the hospital after receiving treatment.

Police said Reddy went inside the locker room along with a staff Monday evening an hour before the bank's closing time. The staff then left him alone to operate his locker after opening it using the bank's master key. However, while closing the bank, the staff forgot about the elderly man and did not notice him inside the locker.

Reddy did not have a mobile phone with him and could not contact anyone, police said.

According to police officers, if Reddy's family files a complaint, they would be registering a case against the bank staff on charges of negligence.

Last month, a 2-year-old girl in Florida was found locked inside a daycare center when her mother went to pick up the child. Emergency officers arrived at the scene and rescued the child after the mother saw her peering from the window of a pitch dark room. The staff reportedly left the daycare around 10 minutes before the mother arrived. However, it was unclear how the child got locked inside the room.