Pranksters convince hotel guest to heave TV, fridge out window
Last Updated: Monday, March 23, 2009 | 4:09 PM PT
CBC News
The defenestrated mini-fridge sits outside the Edgewater Hotel in Whitehorse following the phone prank Sunday night. (Allison Devereaux/CBC)A sleepy guest at a Whitehorse hotel fell victim to a late-night hoax Sunday when pranksters pretending to be hotel staff instructed him to hurl two appliances out of his second-storey window as an emergency measure.
Staff at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Whitehorse said the Victoria man was sleeping in his room when callers woke him up shortly after 11 p.m. to say there was a gas leak in the building.
The callers, who said they were from the front desk, told the guest he had to increase air flow into the building by throwing the room's television and mini-refrigerator through his window.
The man was also instructed to pull the fire alarm, waking the Edgewater's other guests.
"The poor guy in the room is, of course, feeling pretty bashful and somewhat stupid, but he's not going to be held liable or anything," David Goold, the hotel's night attendant, told CBC News early Monday morning.
"He can't really be blamed for what you're doing, half-awake, under the front desk's supposed instructions, which is who the people on the phone said they were."
Goold said he later received two separate tips from callers in Ontario, who said the people responsible for the hoax were bragging about their conquest in an online chat room.
Goold passed on the tips to Whitehorse RCMP, who say the incident is under investigation.
