News - Cambridge scholar trapped in medieval tower bathroom uses eyeliner pencil, cotton bud to get out

A Cambridge academic used an eyeliner pencil and a cotton bud to escape a medieval tower after getting trapped in its bathroom, reports The Telegraph. Dr. Krisztina Ilko, a junior research fellow and director of studies at Queens’ College, lives in the tower in rooms which were once the home of Desiderius Erasmus, the 16th-century Dutch theologian and philosopher. The 33-year-old said she feared she could die when she was unable to release the lock on the bathroom’s heavy wooden door last Thursday. The rooms were not due to be cleaned until Monday, meaning she was facing an ordeal that could have lasted for almost 100 hours. With her shoulder bruised from the attempts to break down the door, Dr. Ilko turned to an eyeliner pencil and a cotton bud. She poked the former through the keyhole to push down the latch on the other side of the door and the cotton bud as a hook, freeing herself after seven hours inside the bathroom. She believes the bathroom’s lock had been broken by a plumber who mended her shower earlier that week, trapping her inside when she went in. “Sometimes when I hear sounds around here I joke that it is the ghost of Erasmus, then I thought I was going to join him and become a Cambridge legend,” she said.