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Burglar calls 911 after getting stuck in escape room, police say

VANCOUVER, Wash. — A burglar called 911 early Sunday morning after he couldn’t find his way out of an escape room in Vancouver, Washington, deputies said.

Clark County sheriff's officials told KPTV that the burglar apparently locked himself in the NW Escape Experience, near Portland.

Escape rooms are popular businesses that trap customers from the inside, forcing them to complete a series of puzzles in order to escape.

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The man apparently took a cellphone, TV remote and a beer from the fridge before calling 911, KOIN reports. He gave the dispatcher a fake address, claiming his home was being burglarized.

"The sheriff said he had a burrito and he was settling in to have a breakfast and a beer, and then got scared because he couldn't get out," Rob Bertrand, owner of NW Escape Experience, told KOIN.

Deputies told KPTV the man broke the backdoor knob, panicked and called 911 several times.

Eventually, he was able to get out of the room and authorities found him in a nearby strip mall.

Rye Daniel Wardlaw was arrested after police interviewed him and found evidence linking him to the burglary.

Wardlaw now faces charges of second-degree burglary.

He is held in lieu of $40,000 bail.

While some business owners would be shaken after a break-in, Bertrand appears to be taking it in stride.

We are proud to say we’ve got a 💯 capture rate of criminals! It is true, we were burglarized early Sunday morning. The...

Posted by NW Escape Experience on Monday, July 9, 2018

"We started thinking about it and yeah, it's really funny," Bertrand told KOIN. "I'm proud to say I'm the only escape room in the Northwest that has a 100 percent capture rate of criminals."