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Man Trapped Inside ATM Cries for Help to Customers

A visitor to a Bank of America in Corpus Christi experienced a rather rough afternoon recently.

He was a contractor, there to install a lock on the bank's service room ATM. While he was inside the ATM, the door closed behind him—and then wouldn't open. And he'd left his phone in the truck.

According to NPR's The Two-Way, "He had no one to call and no way to make his voice heard intelligibly through the machine."

What did he have? Pen and paper.

"So people are coming by and using the ATM machine because it's still operational," a local police officer explained, "and he's slipping notes through the ATM, through where you would get your receipt."

One of the notes read, "Please help. I'm stuck in here and I don't have my phone. Please call my boss."

Most customers believed it was a prank—until "a good Samaritan took the situation seriously and contacted the cops," who also initially believed it was a prank.

Eventually, however, the man was freed.

As one officer put it, "It was just crazy."

Potential Preaching Angles: This modern-day "good Samaritan" may have served his neighbor in a humorously unfortunate situation—but how can we, too, be looking out for ways to live out the truths of Jesus' famous parable in our day-to-day lives?

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