Man stuck in chimney sums it up: 'Stuuuuuupid!'

Man stuck in chimney sums it up: 'Stuuuuuupid!'
Reuters News Service
Associated Press


Firefighters cut out the side of a
chimney to rescue Mark Vaughn.

FORT WORTH - Mark Vaughn said so himself. Sliding down his mother-in-law's chimney Tuesday morning wasn't exactly a hot idea.

Most people might agree that, unless you're Santa, you just can't slide down a chimney without getting stuck. But Vaughn -- a 35-year-old entertainer-DJ-singer-wanna-be-actor -- marches to the beat of a different drummer.

So when his mother-in-law locked her keys in her house just before 11 a.m., he decided to tackle the problem feet first.

"I slid all the way down, but the angle wasn't right," Vaughn said. "I couldn't move. I was trying to work it out. But I worked myself into getting stuck."

Vaughn's mother-in-law, who had wanted to call a locksmith to begin with, dialed 911.

Moments later, seven fire department units, including the technical rescue team, came screaming up to the house.

Paramedics brought out a stretcher in preparation for Vaughn's rescue. A mob of television reporters flocked to the scene, angling for space behind yellow tape as neighbors griped at them to stay off their yards.

The obviously embarrassed mother-in-law kept her distance, making it very clear to fire officials that she did not want to hear her name or see her face on the news.

Next-door neighbor David Poindexter, 83, came out of his house to see what all the fuss was about.

"I was in my house and my wife came to the door and said there were fire trucks outside," said Poindexter. "My Lord, half of the fire department was out front. I came out and discovered there was a gentlemen caught in the chimney."

Like so many others, Poindexter watched wide-eyed as fire officials cut, drilled and dug their way through the rock and brick fireplace. Finally, a white and blue tennis shoe emerged.

Not long after, firefighters gingerly helped Vaughn, sporting a beard, silver earrings in both ears and dressed in all black, out of the fireplace and into the yard -- where his mother-in-law was waiting.

After a brief yelling match between Vaughn and his mother-in-law, in which Vaughn could be heard yelling, "Just be cool about it!" all seemed well again -- except, of course, for the large gaping hole in the chimney.

Vaughn refused medical treatment and spent the next several minutes shaking firefighters' hands.

"Firemen Rock!" Vaughn later told reporters, adding that he wasn't even upset that they had nicked his finger a bit with a drill. "They were here to save my life."

He described his new-found freedom like, "Winning the lottery, man!" but he acknowledged that he had learned a lesson or two from his adventure.

"Listen to your mother-in-law. Don't climb down chimneys. And I probably need to lose weight."

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