A man who became trapped inside a notable piece of Edmonton public art made of large silver spheres was arrested soon after firefighters helped him escape the structure.
Edmonton firefighters were called to the Talus Dome sculpture around 8:30 p.m. Sunday after someone walking by noticed a strange sight.
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.”
Man rescued from notable Edmonton artwork
A 26-year-old man is facing a mischief charge after being trapped inside a notable piece of Edmonton art after being rescued by Edmonton Fire Services. The video was shot by Connor Schwindt who posted it to his Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/cwks/). The video has since gone viral.
Police say the man had climbed on top of the structure and became trapped inside soon after.
To extricate the man, firefighters had to cut into the structure and remove one of the balls, said Sarah Jackson, a spokesperson for Edmonton Fire Rescue Services.
Three crews, including a technical rescue team, were involved in the call, she said.
No injuries were reported.
Soon after the man slipped out of the sculpture, he was arrested.
Police say the man caused damage to several of the balls while climbing on top of the structure.
The 26-year-old was charged with one count of mischief over $5,000 then released, police said.
The public art installation has proven polarizing among Edmontonians for years.
The Talus Dome was damaged during the extraction of a 26-year-old man who became trapped Sunday night. (Sam Brooks/CBC)
Hans Klaver is a fan of the piece, and made his way down to the rescue scene Sunday after hearing about it on Facebook.
“I like the balls, one of the few people who do, so I came down to have a look. There was a guy inside there,” he told CBC News on Monday.
“Apparently he climbed up top someplace, found a hole big enough to slither into and slithered down inside. And then he couldn’t get out.”
Klaver said he’s admired the shiny chrome exhibit for years and always wondered what it would look like from inside but has never been “curious or stupid enough” to give it a try.
He said he met the man’s girlfriend who advised Klaver that she never thought scaling the sculpture was a good idea.
“Maybe they should have left him there overnight, you know, throw him a sandwich or something,” Klaver said with a laugh.
“But they rescued him.”
The Talus Dome, maintained by the Edmonton Arts Council, is part of the City of Edmonton’s Public Art Collection.
Constructed in 2011, the structure designed by California-based artists Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues cost around $600,000.
‘Even stranger’
Schwindt said his video of the incident has since gone viral, and it’s no surprise. The installation, often referred to as the Talus Balls, has proven divisive among Edmontonians for years.
“Seeing a guy trapped in there was strange but seeing the social media fallout is even stranger,” he said.
“I mean it’s so Edmonton,” he said. “How polarizing the Talus Balls are is already funny and to have some dude slip inside there … I just thought it was humorous.”
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
