A 91-year-old Dunedin woman was rescued from a building by police after she returned from the toilet to find her friends had disappeared and locked her in.
Shirley Fynmore said the meeting of the Otago branch of Hearing Association New Zealand had concluded at the Playfair St office so she went to use the toilet.
She came back to find all the other members had gone and she was locked in the building.
"I'm so embarrassed,'' Mrs Fynmore said after the hour-long ordeal.
"I was so upset. I couldn't use the blessed cellphone."
A call on a landline phone was not possible as she was hard of hearing.
She sat still for an hour so as not to set off the building's alarm, which was first triggered when she came out of the toilet.
Eventually, her son David Fynmore, who usually received a text message from his mother when she was ready to be picked up, got concerned and phoned her, then police.
"She was starting to panic,'' Mr Fynmore said.
"She's pretty amazing for her age.''
Constable Aime Manning, of Dunedin, arrived at the building and contemplated breaking a window to get to a distressed Mrs Fynmore.
Eventually Const Manning managed to talk Mrs Fynmore round to a back door which could be unlocked from the inside.
She agreed it was her good deed for the day.
