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UNFORTUNATE: The toilet seemed to be working fine when Rob Colgan opened the door on Saturday afternoon. Photo: Private
It didn’t go exactly as planned when Rob Colgan borrowed the township toilet in Grøtfjord. The door wouldn’t open, and the key was in Tromsø.
Colgan was on a little sightseeing trip with his girlfriend Åsne Høgetveit when the need to go to the bathroom arose at 2.15pm on Saturday.
There was practically a seemingly working toilet nearby. Colgan moved in and was able to enjoy good facilities in a small new building with heating cables installed.
The problem arose when it returned to leave. The door did not open.
– The door opened well. But when I tried to get out, the door was closed. Eventually it was impossible to get out without a key, he tells VG.
Located in Tromsø
After being trapped for a while, he contacted his girlfriend to see if she could help him.
Rob had paid with a very well-functioning payment machine and thought maybe she could buy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out either.
– In the end, I just had to call the municipality and hear if they could help, says Høgetveit, who is himself a representative of the municipal council.
He also posted a post on Facebook that received a response and was picked up by the local newspaper Nordlys, which first mentioned the case.
The municipality was finally able to say they could leave it out. The problem was, the key was a 45 minute drive in Tromsø and had to be located first.
That it should take so long, the couple is critical.
– If it was a child or someone who had fallen and injured himself, this would have been very bad, says Colgan.
– It wasn’t that bad for me, but it could have been worse if there was someone else.
Did you get this with you? See the video in the window below:
Out of service
The toilet is not working, so Rob probably didn’t come out. There is a little note on the toilet that says it doesn’t work, but not on the door.
Åsne stayed outside waiting for Ådne to come out for more than two hours. Odd Helge Vekve in Bydrift was the man who ultimately became the rescue.
He arrived at the scene around 4.30pm after locating the key with one of the contractors who installed the bathroom.
– I opened it, released it and locked it again, Vekve tells VG at 18 o’clock.
It says it is a newly built toilet that has not yet been put into operation. It is located along the road and next to a beach that is widely used by tourists in summer, as well as Northern Lights tourists in winter.
Vekve says it’s unfortunate that the barricades weren’t there as they should be, noting that it could have been a lot worse if someone without a phone had gotten stuck there.
– Apparently the barriers were removed somehow. It’s unfortunate that someone purposely took them off, but they might as well have vanished – pretty bad weather, she says.
– Now we have lost posters of these card machines, so now you have to physically remove something if you want to enter.
