Arriving to unlock her restaurant, Jeanne Ray heard a faint voice coming from the empty kitchen: "Help. Help."
Ray, frightened by the sound, called police, who arrived a few minutes later. "I'm up here," the voice said.Officers found two legs, one bare and one encased in a white sock, dangling from a vent above the stove.
"What happened?" the cops asked the legs.
"I tried to crawl down and I got stuck," the man replied. He said he'd been there all night, jammed 15 feet or so down the greasy exhaust duct.
One of the man's sneakers landed on the grill, the other in a fry basket. Firefighters dropped a rope from the roof and pulled the man out.
A 28-year-old man was charged Thursday with second-degree burglary and criminal mischief.
Ray was so freaked out she had to be coaxed into the kitchen and was "pretty shocked" by the sight of legs suspended over the stove.