Restroom traps two women at art museum grand opening

 

 

By Erik Luna

Two women, who attended the opening of East Los Angeles College’s Vincent Price Museum, got trapped in a restroom of the building for three hours during the event last Saturday.

Many attendees who heard about the mishap assumed the women were students, but this was not true.

The women were not students of ELAC.

The restroom that held the women captive is located on the third floor of the museum and is currently closed for further renovations.

The reason for the women being trapped has been determined as a malfunction of the restroom door.

The repair for the door has been assigned to Jacobs/Pacifica, the project manager for construction on campus.

ELAC locksmith Ted Strinz, arrived on the scene shortly after attendees discovered that the two women were trapped.

“I arrived, I’d say, around ten till eight and tried messing with the lock and even trying to pull out the hinges, but after that didn’t work we got word from (Vice President of Academic Affairs) Richard Moyer to open up a wall. Its less expensive to open up the wall than break down the door,” said Strinz.

Along with Strinz was the Carpentry Supervisor Carey Delzell, who actually opened up the wall.

Moyer, who spoke to Strinz before they opened the wall, said if they couldn’t get the job done, he was going to call Monterey Park Rescue.

The women were rescued around 9 p.m. and firefighters were called in to help out.

There were two cadets on scene, one custodian, a lot of administrators and about 100 spectators.

Throughout the event, many attendees had heard about a person being trapped in a restroom, but no one was certain of what was happening except the people who were in charge of the event.

People started whispering to each other that a little boy was trapped in the restroom and was scared.

Coincidently at this time, a nun who was an artist at the event started praying for the boy’s safety with her fellow nuns.

Another rumor that was started was that there were two nuns trapped in the bathroom, but it seems this was only information lost in translation.

There was also some talk about a man being trapped in a vault of the museum and that paramedics had to come to the aid of the man.

Everyone who had been working at the event knew that these rumors had no truth behind it because they knew what was really happening.

Strinz also said, “When we broke through the wall, the first thing we saw, was the flash of one of the girl’s camera phone. They seemed to be in good spirits about the whole ordeal, they didn’t even get any of the plaster dust on their dresses on the way out of the restroom.”