On Sunday evening, April 9, emergency crews in Edmonton, Alberta were called to a public art sculpture called "Talus Dome," to rescue a 26-year-old man who had crawled inside and gotten trapped. Talus Dome was designed by artists Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, and according to the City of Edmonton website, the sculpture won an Edmonton Urban Design Award in 2013. The City describes the artwork:
Talus Dome is both a sculpture in the landscape and a mirror to the landscape. Composed of nearly 1,000 handcrafted stainless steel spheres forming an abstract talus shape, the sculpture reflects the sky, weather and the river of cars that pass by it.
On Sunday, a man crawled into the sculpture and was unable to find his way out. Edmonton firefighters were called to the scene to help. CBC.ca describes the scene:
A man was inside the mound of polished stainless steel balls with no way out.
Connor Schwindt said he was on a post-Easter dinner run past the sculpture perched on the edge of Fox Drive and the Quesnell Bridge, when he noticed a commotion.
Firefighters were attempting to extricate the man. Schwindt said he asked firefighters if it was a man or animal trapped inside.
When he learned that it was a person inside, he began documenting the incident on his phone and poked his head inside the sculpture for a closer look.
He said the man inside the structure was beginning to panic.
"It was kind of like watching a mouse fall into a bucket," said Schwindt. "He was just kind of running around inside of it starting to freak out because he couldn't get out."
In order to rescue the man trapped inside, firefighters had to cut the structure and remove one of the balls. After being extricated from the sculpture, the man was immediately arrested and charged with one count of mischief. You can see the video of the man trapped inside the sculpture on the CBC.ca website.
