Man Visiting Illinois Jail Trapped Alone For 30 Hours

A man visiting his son at an Illinois jail facility ended up being accidentally incarcerated for over 30 hours.

The unnamed middle-aged man was at the Cook County Jail on Saturday when he was informed his son, who has been there for 13 months, was moved to a different area of the facility, according to the Chicago Tribune. Not used to the new area, the father walked through the door of an empty visiting room when the door closed and locked him inside.

He was trapped for 31 hours in the room with nothing but three stools, glass partitions and a concrete door.

Rescuers from the Chicago Fire Department freed him at around 1 a.m. on Monday. He was transported to Rush University Medical Center to treat his thumb that was injured when he broke a sprinkler head in the room.

"Brilliantly, he broke the sprinkler head off which alerted the fire department so they were able to identify where it was coming from and they went in and found him," Cara Smith, executive director of the Cook County Jail, told the newspaper.

"He was incredibly, obviously, relieved and couldn't have been more gracious," Smith said.

The man has visited his son in jail once a week ever since he was sent there to await trial on drug charges. When the father arrived, staff told him his son was now in an area for "workers."

"He was told to proceed ahead and stay to the right to go to that visitor area," Smith told the Chicago Tribune. "He encountered a door that was propped open and he went in and the door shut behind him."

As it turns out, the man was locked in a maximum-security room where people visit the "highest classification" prisoners, Smith said.

Since the area is not used during the weekends, there was no reason to check on the room, Smith said. But prison officials are investigating to see how things went south for the father.

"Multiple things obviously failed including a contractor leaving a door open while they did work in our jail," Smith told the newspaper. "It was a perfect storm of circumstances that led to this horrible incident."