Getting locked in a toilet cubicle is everyone’s worst nightmare, especially at the end of the night out when you have had one too many and just about to head home.
But that is exactly what happened to one KU student who had to escape from a toilet cubicle by tearing down the door and ripping it off its hinges at a Camden bar.
Forensic science student Bryony King, 23, was celebrating her friend’s birthday in The Blues Kitchen in Camden, when she became locked inside one of the cubicles.
“I was really panicking and I was getting really flustered. Nothing like that has happened to me before. I was trying to open it from the inside and all of a sudden the whole door and frame came off,” said King.
“I clearly don’t know my own strength. When I’d realised what I had done, I was just hysterically laughing.”
King, who does not usually consider herself as strong, said that her instincts kicked in during her state of panic when she realised she could not open the door.
“I have no idea how it happened, they are pretty sturdy looking wooden doors and I struggle opening jars most of the time,” said King.
King, who confirmed she was under the influence of alcohol and said The Blues Kitchen was the third bar of the night, was accompanied by one of her friends in the toilets at the time of the incident, and said that no one else was there to help her.
The former account manager at Yves Saint Laurent, was pulling the door from the inside whilst her friend struggled to open the door from the outside.
King said: “The whole cubicle door and part of the frame was hanging off the hinges, my other friend came in afterwards and said to me: ‘what have you done?’.”
Once free from the toilet, King alerted a member of the bar staff to the now door-less cubicle, where she stood dumbstruck at the damage.
King recalled that the barmaid said: “I have no idea how you managed to do that.”
The Blues Kitchen in Camden, which has venues in North, East and South London, confirmed that the bar does get damaged during weekends but said that no one has ever got stuck in their cubicles before.
“We have hundreds of drunken menaces and monkeys coming in every weekend. Somebody being trapped in the bathroom is new for the Blues Kitchen Camden,” said a member of staff.
“But we can assure that our toilets are very safe,” they added.
King’s ordeal was recorded in the bar’s incident book and the door has since been replaced.
King has confirmed that her cubicle nightmare will not deter her from going back to the popular spot on Camden high street.
“I am hoping I do not get any letters though the post or anything but I think they were cool with it. It was just so ridiculous.
“I’ll go back there as long as I am not barred. But I will definitely be a little more calm and collected and try not to resort to breaking down doors in the future,” said King.
Balsam Maki
Dharmi Dave
Alex Bennett