LITHONIA Ga. (CBS46) – Workers at a shopping mall in DeKalb County confirmed as much as a weird scene Tuesday morning. A person was caught in an oven vent and was screaming for assist.

“I definitely did not expect this,” mentioned Staff Sgt. Brittany Davis, a recruiter for the U.S. Army.

She informed CBS46 she and a co-worker heard the screams as they opened the recruiting workplace for the day. The workplace is situated in a shopping mall on Covington Highway close to DeKalb Medical Parkway.

“We actually stepped back to see if maybe someone was on top of the roof,” Davis mentioned.

Next door, a employee on the Little Caesar’s Pizza was listening to the identical screams coming from an oven vent. Davis went contained in the restaurant and will hear the person’s voice extra clearly.

“He was actually saying that he can’t breathe, that he’s having a panic attack,” she mentioned, “and of course, I was just concerned for him.”

She referred to as 911, and police and firefighters descended upon the procuring middle.

“Kind of unconventional, something we don’t deal with every day,” mentioned Capt. Jaeson Daniels, a spokesman for DeKalb County Fire & Rescue.

Fire and rescue personnel jumped into motion. As they minimize away a part of the vent, they may see how slim the area was the place the person was trapped.

“I’m glad that our guys, in particular our heavy rescue unit, carries a lot of different tools and we were able to use a lot of them today to get him out safely,” he mentioned.

When rescuers lastly freed the person, cops put him in handcuffs and escorted him to an awaiting ambulance. He was complaining of dehydration and friction burns on his arms from the place he slid down the shaft, so paramedics took him to a hospital to be checked out.

Detectives didn’t instantly say what costs the person will face or speculate on his motive for getting into the constructing.

“He didn’t give a statement on what he was actually doing, but it’s pretty apparent,” mentioned Daniels. “We’ll let PD sort those things out.”

“I didn’t ask,” mentioned Davis, the Army recruiter. “I’m just glad they didn’t turn the oven on because he would’ve been toast.”

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