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A trip to the buffet, feet first

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published June 9, 2007

RIVERVIEW - The Lucky Buffet was anything but Friday for a man who appeared to have set out to burglarize the place, but got solidly wedged in a vent duct and trapped.

The Riverview man got stuck partway down the aluminum duct after plunging feet first into the rooftop shaft Friday, shortly after midnight .

Ten hours later, the staff arrived to prepare for lunch. They heard noises near the grill.

Buffet worker Guizhu Liang assumed it was a delivery worker at the back door, she said in Mandarin through an interpreter. She checked but saw nothing. Then she heard noises inside the ventilation shaft.

She called to her son, sushi chef Tian Xiang Zheng. He looked up and saw a shoe.

"I say, 'What do you do?' And he say, 'I stuck in here, ' " said Zheng, 23.

Employees called the manager and 911. Hillsborough County Fire Rescue workers arrived. So did sheriff's deputies.

Firefighters pulled a truck behind the strip mall at U.S. 301 and Boyette Road. They dropped a rope down the shaft as a harness to go around Jordan's waist.

Inside the restaurant, a firefighter climbed up inside the shaft, his uniformed legs sticking out the bottom. Employees, not letting the scene interrupt lunch service, placed steaming plates of General Tso's chicken and spring rolls on the buffet.

Outside, just before 11 a.m., Jordan's head surfaced above the shaft. He looked dazed as rescuers placed him in the ladder bucket, his hands in handcuffs.

The grime and grease from the shaft proved helpful in sliding Jordan up and out of the 16-inch square vent, fire Capt. Michael Guincho said.

Jordan was charged with burglary, sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said.

[Last modified June 9, 2007, 00:32:14]