A man in his 30s was locked in a tiny bathroom for five hours and was able to be saved through Bixby, a virtual assistant developed by Samsung.

According to Yonhap News on April 12, a man in his 30s who lives in a studio apartment in central Seoul, went into his 1 square meter (11 square feet) bathroom to wash up after work around 7 PM, but the doorknob was broken, and he became trapped.

There are no windows in the bathroom, and the door was shut so tight that the man, who stands at 170 cm (5'7") weighing 102 kg (225 lbs), was unable to kick open the door no matter how hard he tried. He even tried using a metal pipe in the bathroom to wedge open the door, but it did not help. The man claims to have struggled for around 5 hours while screaming for help, but to no avail.

As he sat trapped in the tiny bathroom, the man suddenly remembered that his Samsung phone was nearby on a table and had a voice recognition program - Bixby. It was 11:42 PM when he called out to Bixby and requested Samsung's virtual assistant to call the emergency line (119) for help. However, Bixby didn't recognize the request and instead called the man's parents.

The man's parents, who received a call in the middle of the night from their son, only heard the faint words "119,  119" and realized their son was in trouble. The parents called the fire department and quickly got help for their son.

As the man's phone call was being tracked by nearby police and fire departments, they quickly prepared to enter the location to rescue him. During this time, the fire department stayed in contact with the man's parents over the phone, talking to them six times in urgent efforts to locate him.

Thankfully, the man's sister was able to provide the exact address and apartment number to the police and fire departments. At around 12:17 AM, only 30 minutes after the man used Bixby to request help, the authorities successfully rescued him.

The man shared, "If my phone didn't have the virtual AI assistant, then I would not have been able to call for help and would have been trapped in the bathroom until now. I believe I was saved thanks to my phone. I realized I should take my phone whereever I go."

He revealed that he even ripped a hole in the ceiling to find a way to escape through the roof. The man shared, "I even ripped the ceiling looking for a way out. My arm still hurts from trying to climb through the ceiling. My hands also got cut up trying to break through the door using a metal pipe from the sink."

After hearing about this story, many netizens have expressed their intentions to enable Bixby on their phones.