FORT WORTH, Texas - It may work for Santa Claus and the singing chimney sweep in "Mary Poppins", but one Texas man found out that going down the chimney was no way to enter a home after he became wedged in the smoke stack.
Mark Vaughn was trying to help his family get back into their home in Fort Worth after they locked themselves out on Tuesday.
When his mother-in-law told him to get a locksmith, Vaughn said he got the idea of going down the chimney. His inspiration was the character of the chimney sweep played by actor Dick Van Dyke in the movie "Mary Poppins", which he had recently seen.
"What prompted me? I was watching the Dick Van Dyke movie a few weeks ago, you know the chimney sweeper movie," Vaughn told reporters.
Vaughn said he thought he was going to make it all the way down the chimney, but he got stuck near the bottom. After about 30 minutes in the chimney, Vaughn realised he could go no further and yelled out for help.
His family called for the fire department, and as he waited in the shaft, Vaughn said his arms and legs went numb.
Rescue workers carefully dismantled the chimney brick by brick and after about an hour, they opened a hole large enough to free Vaughn.
"In trying to get the person out, you have to do a lot of manipulation of the brick and mortar, which can transmit a lot of injury to the person inside," said James Johns, a fire battalion chief.
A grateful Vaughn, his face black with soot, shook hands with the firefighters who rescued him and said the episode left him shaken.
Love the country, live to pee outside!
