Man locked inside Gold's Gym for hours after closing

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- A man was locked inside a Gold's Gym near Bear Creek for hours after closing time Saturday night.

Joseph Norris said he went inside the sauna around 5:50pm Saturday. When he came out, he was the only one left inside the gym.

"I went in, laid down, had my headphones in, my alarm went off after ten minutes, I sat up, the lights were off, and no one was in the gym," Norris said. "I was completely locked in, no way out."

Norris works as a firefighter in Houston and lives near New Braunfels. He goes to Gold's Gym when he's in the Houston area.

He said he thought the ordeal was funny at first, but as time went by his sense of humor started to wane.

"I started calling around to the different Gold's Gyms in town to see if they could let me out, and no one knew phone numbers," Norris said. "No one knew how to do it, and they just said, 'hey, you need to call the cops'."

Coincidentally, it was the fire department that had to rescue this firefighter.

"I was so embarrassed," Norris said.

The gym manager declined an on-camera interview but explained there are signs posted throughout the gym listing closing times and that employees are required to check all areas of the gym before locking up. He said they must have simply missed Norris lying in the sauna.

"You know, I'm a young guy and healthy and stuff, but there are a lot of people who are older and use the sauna who have health issues," Norris said. "So if they're left in there, and they had some kind of medical problem and passed out, it could have turned bad."

Norris said he plans on returning to the gym and that management apologized to him. He hopes they take a close look at their procedures to make sure someone else doesn't get locked inside in the future.