Sounds very dramatic doesn’t it? Let me assure it that this has happened to many ladies I know who have small children. Just a couple of days back, we helped out a lady locked in her toilet by her young son. Her balcony door needed to be broken to gain entry into the house. Her incident reminded me of my own scary experience, which happened in 2003. My elder son was just about 1 year old then. Husband was out of town on work, and mommy and son were alone in our 3-bedroom rented accommodation. We had just recently moved into this place and to Bangalore too. I remember getting into the toilet and felt my son playing with the latch of the door outside. Before I could react and open the door, he had locked me inside. Once I realized that, I asked him calmly to try to unlock the door. Of course, he couldn’t. He also began howling. I felt a little panic. I peeped out the tiny bathroom window which had window slats. I took out 2-3 slats and found myself peeping out at the backside of the building. I could see no one there. Across from me and some distance away, there were another wing of the apartment block. No front doors of the houses opened there either. By this time, I began feeling very panicky. I started shouting “Help, someone please help.” No one was seen. I kept shouting as loudly as possible; my panic growing with every minute. After what seemed like an eternity, I saw a man looking with a lot of concern from some distance away. He could not understand where I was but could hear my voice.
I helped him in understanding my house number, and shouted across about what had happened. The front door of my house was locked, I told him. It had a good Godrej lock and the latch was on as well. He promised to go look for one of the carpenters who were working in the building. I prayed hard. I had instructed him to break the lock to gain entry. After some minutes of waiting and trying to tell a hysterical baby Sid that everything will be okay, I heard someone trying to break the front door. To cut a long story short, he had to take out the external lock out by removing a part of the door and also break the latch to gain entry. He walked in swiftly and unlatched the toilet door. I muttered a hurried thank you and gathered a crying Siddharth in my arms. Within a minute, he was out of the house, and I never saw him again. I did not even thank the Good Samaritan properly or ask his name or where he stayed to thank him later.
Thank God, he was there and went through so much trouble to help us out selflessly. Since that incident, we have tried our best to pass on this good deed. This is the only way in which I can thank him and his selfless act.
Rachna, this is very frightening specially when kids lock Mom’s without knowing what they are doing. I have been in the same situation and can well understand the state of the mind.
Thank god that help came in when you needed.
After all God is always there to help…isn’t it???
I am always scared that I might lock myself out, although we have at least 4 doors opening out but all of them would be locked from inside. When ever nobody is home i always go out to receive a courier or post from the side door which doesn’t have the automatic lock.
I remember once when I was 18/ 19 years old in Madras I had gone off to sleep in the afternoon when my parents had gone off somewhere, those days we used to just latch it up from inside. They came back and kept ringing the bell many times, made lots of noise to wake me up but I was totally deaf and dead to the world. The whole muhalla was out there trying to wake me up, but I wouldn’t budge. Then finally somebody poked me with a stick from the window (I was luckily sleeping near it) and only then I woke up and opened the door. My God! I was so embarrassed to face the people and got a good scolding from my parents. I suppose it was the heat of Madras that had really got into me and made me sleep like Kumbakarna.
I am so glad you could find help to come out safely. I can understand what you must have gone through having a small helpless child crying behind the closed door. Thank God some one came to your help.
Your blog is good warning to people with small kids, to take care of these little things which might otherwise turn out to be so dangerous.
Btw. sorry for such a long comment.
Well a frightening ordeal, BUt letting a unknow person into the HOUSE.. what do I say to that .. Thats even more frightening.. Thank god this guy was a gentleman..
I would advice you to change the locks on the doors and put the ones that open and close from the Inside.. and also why did u not break the toilet dooor …
Poor Sid …
Well thank god someone listened and helped but that was 2003 , hope you dont let a stranger inside today ..
Take care and be good , what latches you got now 🙂 he he he he
Bikram’s
Your turn to return the good deed, aye?! It must have been terrifying no doubt. God bless such good samaritans! My mom had a similar experience and I was the brat (11/2-2 yrs old) who locked her up in the bath. The neighbourhood came to her rescue.
@ rama, LOL at that comment! You won’t believe it, I did something similar too, at around the same age. Slept like a log, and when my folks got back home they tried everything – bell, banging on door, hollering and finally banging on the window of the bedroom that I was sleeping in, to wake me up!! That was in Coimbatore. I perhaps assumed that all that noise was up in my head 😀
@Gouri Yes, it is very frightening. In my case, more so, because I knew that even in the evening no one would be coming home. Thank God, really!
@rama My 8-year-old son often does that even now. Once, he took the keys from us, came home and slept off near the window. This was at night. We had to scream and shout through the window and it took ages for him to wake up and open the door. Oh, I have many such incidents to share :). No problem about the long comment. Your story was interesting and funny :).
@Bikram You are right, but what option did I have? There were no people I knew closeby, and how could I contact anyone? Don’t worry, I got that lock changed that very evening ;-), and we’ve moved houses since then. Bikram, really, I am not that strong that I could break the toilet door, and the latch was not a chitkani but a kundi so all the more harder.
It was a harrowing experience, and the only lucky thing is that it happened during the late afternoon and not at night. Now, I am extra careful, and in this neighborhood, we are lucky that a lot of people and houses are close by, and the kids are a little grown up, thank God. But, I am still prone to the incidents, which rama mentioned :). Thanks for your concern!
@RGB Absolutely. We have rescued at least 5 ladies in similar situations this far. This child locking up mom incident is much more common than one would think otherwise. At 2 years, you were not a brat just an inquisitive child :). Your incident was funny too :). Especially that part about thinking that all that noise was a part of the dream ;-).
Scary! and well written. All homes are equipped with this bolting system from out..it makes it so easy for anybody to lock u inside ur home/bathroom. Are new homes coming with the lock from inside system?
Scary experience. Our neighbours had the opposite exp. Their son, some 5 years old, locked himself inside the flat with his mother on the outside. And then proceeded to drink some Benedryl coz he liked the taste. The cough syrup knocked him out due its drowsiness inducing properties. His mom was petrified. She came running to our place. The ventilator had to be broken to gain entry to the house. That boy sure had a knack of getting into trouble. Once he tried to jump off the balcony on first floor!
Very frightening, and confusing too. Kids…
was jus mentioning this incident to my colleague. She also reported an almost similar experience happened to the tenants of the upper floor of her house. The husband goes out. The mother is alone wth her one year old child. and she is carrying for the second time. She goes bathroom. the child locks her from outside. She is tensed. since the bathroom is very tall she had to place the bucket on the top f the closet and had to climb on it. (remember she was carrying) She calls through the ventillator my colleagues father. He rushes to the upper floor. Break the front door using some blunt instruments and rescues the pregnant woman from the locked bath room.
The only difference from ur incident was that the child was still playing using the toys without knowing what trouble had caused because f him..
Thank God.
@Gayatri We do get these bolting systems from inside, but the catch is that sometimes the kids lock themselves inside the room. I remember that once in Hyd, Gautam had locked himself inside the bedroom and luckily mummy had the room’s key hanging outside.
@Deepa On my God, this boy is a nightmare for any parent. How did they stop his jumping from the balcony? Luckily, he drank Benedryl, not Harpic or something else that is poisonous. Even I realized that most people have faced these lockout/lockin incidents due to their kids.
@Anulal Frightening indeed. All parents must be watchful for such incidents.
@Tomz Oh, how terrible for her since she was pregnant. But, at least since her child was calm, she was not really rushed to react quickly. Yet, that was difficult. My bathroom was at the back of the house and faced into no neighbour’s houses, that was the most terrible part! I guess, each one of us will find someone who has faced something similar.
@BKChowla Yes, thank God!
What an experience.
When my son was small, I just wouldn’t go to the toilet when he was awake; I was that afraid.
Recently my neighbour’s son (2yr old)locked himself in the bathroom. Somehow we kept on instructing him how to turn the lock and he came out
The same thing happened to my friend too…she broke the glass in the door with the help of bucket handle. Since then we have all taken care not to lock any door with only toddlers in the house.
That sounded scary. Thank God for the good Samaritan 🙂
i take him to the toilet with me 🙂 since he is only 1 yr old .
hi its difficult to read the posts since the page is all dark green. not sure if its just my computer!
@bbsearchingself So lucky for your neighbor’s son. Normally, these young ones are just not able to do it in their own panic. With my second son, I never locked the door, it was always left ajar.
@Renu How terrible. We also try and not lock the doors with little kids around.
@Vani :). I used to leave my younger son outside but leave the door ajar when using the toilet. Now, thankfully even the younger one is old enough to unlock the door and not lock anyone inside :). Hey, the blog is not really dark, so maybe you can check you machine’s settings.
yes this happens with lot of people if got the automatic lock system.
@sm That’s true. Young mothers really need to watch out for this.
frightening..a similar incident happnd to us in mumbai…baapree..
Rachna, that really is a desperate situation. It is funny but at the same time sad. In your place I would have panicked totally and tried to break the door.
Be a mother ins’t easy. How nice if all the children we met were truly the angels they appear to be.
About what you asked me, it is a new situation for Brazilian government. I’m not protecting them but I understand what is happening. It is the result of decades of a botched housing policy
The only thing I blame them at this moment is the inability to adequately attend to all victims.
About the situation right now, the worst part is over. Now they are counting the losses both in lives and money and receiving the donations from the whole country.
And fortunately I have no friends in that region.
@Ramesh Oh, hope your incident had a happy ending as well.
@David To tell you the truth, I was a little scared but not panicky because I knew that in that situation, I was the only one who could help myself. And, really more than the child’s fault, it was our fault that we did not remove such latches from doors. Kids being kids would always be fiddling with such things.
don’t know about Brazil, but in India, there does not seem to be any decent disaster management process or system in place. The natural calamities cannot be prevented, but lives can be saved with swift measures in the aftermath. That is where many governments fail. Luckily, you or your family was not directly affected.
Frightening experience.
You are also lucky in that you founf a real good Samaritan.How can we trust people these days?
@Dr. antony Thank you. You are right, it is difficult to find good people these days. Thank God.
Ohhh this is scary. Has not happened with me…and I hope I never face this. Don’t know what I would do in such a situation. Frightening!!
It was very scary and God bless that kind soul!