A man who got locked in a shopping centre after his shift finished said that he 'panicked' when the roof door locked behind him.
Gary Rolfe, 34, was finishing up a shift at the YMCA shop on June 19 when he ran into a problem with the till. After fixing the issue, the assistant manager locked up the store at Cherry Tree Shopping Centre in Wirral and started walking towards the exit.
As he was walking multiple alarms started "blaring" throughout the complex and Gary noticed that he was locked in, Liverpool Echo reports.
Gary said: "I finished at around 4.15/30pm and went out into the centre and it was absolutely empty, there was nobody there and all the shutters were down. Then all the alarms started blaring.
"All the exits were locked, and I remember I was told if we ever got locked in to go upstairs to the delivery office and you can get down by there. When I opened the door and started walking towards the gate I realised it was also locked.
"I went back to the roof door and it had locked behind me. I started to panic because I realised I was stuck."
Gary used his phone to call a member of the security team to ask for help, and when nobody was in, he made another call to somebody who he found out was off sick.
Gary said: "My first thought was 'what am I going to do', I thought I was going to be stuck up there all night. It was boiling hot as well.
"From the roof I saw two members of staff from Home and Bargains, Shirley Lothian-Evans and Ian Jones, walking through the car park and I started shouting at them. I had to call them a couple of times because they didn't know why I was shouting them.
"They came over and asked what was wrong, and I told them I was locked on the roof. Shirley called the police and then the fire service arrived."
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service said crews were called at 5.55pm and arrived on scene four minutes later. A fire service spokesperson said: "On arrival crews found one person stuck behind the service gates to the first storey car park.
"Firefighters formulated a plan to rescue the person using a ladder. However, a representative for the site’s security company arrived on scene and was able to unlock the gate."
Gary said he was glad somebody from security was able to open the gate for him as he "hates ladders".
A spokesperson for Cherry Tree Shopping Centre said: "Cherry Tree Shopping Centre Management are aware of an incident involving a member of YMCA staff becoming unable to leave the Centre on Sunday, June 19.
"The member of staff had worked in the YMCA shop unit beyond the Centre’s trading hours and attempted to leave through the already locked Mall areas before finding themselves trapped on the upper service deck.
"We have conducted a post incident review and as a reminder to all our tenant’s we will be re-issuing sections of the Centre Tenant’s Manual which contains our operational procedures and set out emergency contacts information. We will also be offering refresher training to further assist."
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