A woman had to place an embarrassing 911 phone call after she got herself stuck upside down while using an inversion table at the gym.
On 29 August, Ohio native Christine Faulds shared a video to TikTok of herself working out at the gym at 3am. In the viral clip, she’s seen using an inversion table, which suspends the body upside down to help stretch the spine and relieve back pain. Soon after, Faulds realises that her ankles are locked into the machine and she’s subsequently stuck hanging upside down.
Faulds is heard calling for another man at the gym named Jason, who was working out in the free weight room but he couldn’t hear her yelling over the loud music. After trying for several minutes to free herself, Faulds was left with only one other option: she had to call 911.
“Hi, I couldn’t look up the non-emergency number. There’s only one other person at the gym and I got stuck in this – you know that backboard thing that flips back?” she told the emergency dispatcher from her smart watch.
“I wish there was more people in the gym right now but I’m stuck in this reverse back decompression thing, I don’t know, I just can’t get anyone’s attention at the gym,” she said on the phone. “I’m just stuck upside down and I cannot get myself right side up.”
She told the dispatcher that she tried getting her friend’s attention, but he was in the other room lifting. “This is so embarrassing,” Faulds said. “I’m sorry, I’m just stuck.”
In another clip, she filmed a police officer coming to her rescue. “Oh dear lord, my ankles are burning. Just the easiest rescue ever,” she said to the officer as he turned the inversion table right side up. Following the incident, which lasted a total of 12 minutes, Faulds shared with her followers that her head still felt like a “mild fuzziness” a day later.
After it was posted, Faulds’ gym fail video instantly went viral, with more than seven million views on TikTok. Thousands of people took to the comments section to share their hilarious reactions to the video.
“It’s only embarrassing if you have to make that call more than once,” one person jokingly said.
“Why didn’t you just turn the world upside down? Easy fix,” another user wrote.
“Nah see I’d just die there before I called 911,” someone else admitted.
“And that ladies and gentlemen is why I don’t exercise,” another TikToker said.
Surprisingly, the same situation has also happened to a few others, who shared their upside down experiences with the inversion table in the comments.
“Almost happened to me but I panicked and shook side to side and knocked the whole thing over to get out,” one user said.
“I was stuck in my mom’s garage until they came home from work like 16 years ago,” another person explained. “The garage door opens up and that’s what they see.”
One TikToker shared: “The inversion table is supposed to have a safety strap/tether to prevent it from going completely up and down like this, for this specific reason.”
