Danish man gets stuck in his own desk

Firefighters forced to cut hapless victim free from adjustable workspace

A rescue crew in Horsens in southeastern Jutland performed a somewhat unusual task on Monday: cutting free a man who had somehow managed to get himself trapped in his height-adjustable desk.

“The man could not get free on his own and called 112, so we went out and helped him,” the incident commander Dennis Ottosen told Ekstra Bladet.

The man had laid his leg over a metal beam underneath the tabletop. The tabletop then malfunctioned, slipped off its bearings and clamped down onto the man’s leg like a vice.

“It was quite impossible for him to get free and he was in great pain,” said Ottosen.

Just like Ray Donovan
There was no-one else at the location, but the man was able to dial 112 on his phone and firefighters arrived with lights blazing and sirens screaming. Finding the front door locked, they were forced to break it down.

“The man was stuck, and we did not know how bad his condition was, so we used a battering ram just like you see in the American police shows,” said Ottosen.

“We found the man, who was still sitting on his office chair, wedged firmly under the desktop. He was obviously in severe pain.”

New desk needed
Initially the firefighters tried to lift the tabletop to free the victim, but that attempt failed and they were forced to saw through the desk’s metal supports.

The man was then taken to the hospital. No report on his condition has been released.