Providence Fire and Rescue and the Providence Police Department led a rescue effort early Friday morning after an apparently intoxicated woman became trapped in a narrow space between FedEx Kinko's and City Sports near the corner of Meeting and Thayer streets.
Courtney Malloy, a University of Rhode Island student from Cheshire, Conn., got stuck shortly after she and her friend took an employees-only exit from Baja's Tex Mex Grill and were locked out, according to an NBC 10 report. As she tried to get back to Thayer Street, Malloy, 22, attempted to force her way through an eight-inch-wide alleyway. In the meantime, her friend was let back into Baja.
Initially, the rescue team believed that Malloy had fallen into the alley from the roof, but the surveillance footage and Malloy herself later confirmed in an interview with WPRI that she was trying to cut through the alley to get back to Thayer Street.
Dan LaPlante, who walked by the intersection Friday morning, contacted the police after he heard the woman's cries for help, he told WPRI. The rescue team arrived around 1 a.m. and found Malloy stuck in a horizontal position with her body about two feet off the ground. The team spent the next hour and a half trying to retrieve Malloy.
According to the Providence Journal, the team first tried to reach Malloy by taking down a fence at the front of the alley. When their efforts proved unsuccessful, they tried dropping a rope from the roof of one of the buildings, which allowed Malloy to stabilize herself.
Eventually, the rescue mission had to break through the cement wall of FedEx Kinko's from the inside, allowing firefighter Bert Ledoux to reach the trapped woman. Police said at the time that Malloy could not remember how she got stuck between the two buildings and appeared inebriated. She was transported to Rhode Island Hospital that night, though she had no visible injuries.
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