Banking Babies

A bank in Georgia recently held in its vault what some may consider its most precious cargo – a 14-month-old girl.

Yes, that’s right. This little wanderer ventured away from her mother and grandmother – a bank employee – and found herself inside a suburban Atlanta bank’s vault.

While this may be a dream come true for a Charlestown native, this little girl didn’t have bank robbing in mind. Maybe she was hoping to find that secret stash of bank teller lollipops or more likely she was just bored. Either way, this girl ended up locked inside the vault at Wells Fargo’s Conyer branch for several hours.

It’s still being disputed whether the bank vault automatically shut behind her or if an employee “accidentally” closed it, not realizing a baby was inside playing hide and go seek. Unluckily, for this little girl, the vault was on a timer-release and not scheduled to reopen until the next day. “Oops…” thought the spiteful, bank vault closing co-worker.

At first, this must have seemed like a Candy Land of sorts for the girl. New places to explore with so many things to smell, touch and yes… taste. She is 14 months old after all – they put their mouths on everything.

But alas, all good things come to an end, and through security camera footage, the child – whose wails penetrated the vault’s door – could be seen crying.

This was surely a nightmare for the mother and grandmother, who must have definitely been wishing they had invested in one of those kiddie leashes. Luckily for them, rescue workers were able to pump fresh air into the vault’s vents and a professional safecracker – a la “The Italian Job” – was able to open the vault within several hours.

Besides coming out of the vault with a tear-stained face and tired vocal chords, the only other thing ailing the little girl was a dirty diaper. The Teller thinks we can all say “Cheers” to that.