Teen Gets Stuck in School Ceiling Trying to Break into Cafeteria, Police Say

A teenager who became stuck in the ceiling of a Mississippi elementary school was arrested shortly after his rescue on Sunday night.

Willie Dobbins, 19, called 911 to report that he was suspended from the cafeteria ceiling inside Frazier Elementary School in Natchez.

The teenager is believed to have broken into the school in an attempt to make off with a stash of money stored in the roof before he became stuck, Natchez Police Chief Joseph Daughtry told the Natchez Democrat.

However, the heist quickly turned into a rescue when officers from the Natchez Police and Fire Department were dispatched to the scene just before 9 p.m.

There, Dobbins was found suspended from the ceiling of the school.

Dobbins, from Hattiesburg, was taken into police custody and checked for injuries at a nearby hospital before being transported to jail.

"He is going to be fine," Daughtry said. "He may have some scrapes and bruises."

Dobbins was held in the Adams County Jail on Monday and charged with felony burglary, Fox6 reported.

It is unclear whether the teenager had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.

Newsweek has contacted the Natchez Police Department for comment.

Although Dobbins managed to escape the incident relatively unscathed, other teenagers haven't been so lucky.

Earlier this year, video of a 14-year-old boy's horrific fall from a roof was shared by police in Berea, Ohio.

The accident left the unidentified teenager with serious head injuries and his condition was said to be critical after falling from the townhouse in December of 2020, the Berea Police Department said.

The construction company the boy was working for at the time, Double M Roofing and Construction, was cited for six separate violations and fined $73,533 in penalties by the Department of Labor.

The department also ruled the boy was too young to be doing construction work at heights or working on a ladder.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world in Barcelona, Spain, a 14-year-old girl became stranded on the eighth floor of a building while taking stunt photographs.

After accessing the roof, the girl climbed out onto a beam around 130 feet from the ground while her friend took photos, local media reported. However, when she did not have the strength to pull herself back up to the roof, she wound up stuck on a ledge.

A police press release said officers rushed to the scene to rescue the girl from "a situation of extreme danger" and grabbed her by the hands in order to haul her back to the safety of the roof. She was then treated by a medical team for minor injuries to her arms. Her family, who had been notified, came to pick the girl up and take her home.

Barcelona police tweeted one of the photographs the girl's friend had taken before she became stranded, asking, "Do you think it's worth putting your life at risk to take a picture like that? Think twice before picking up your cell phone!"