Traumatising! Malaysian Locked 24 Hours In Hotel Bathroom During Quarantine

As we all know, Malaysians returning from abroad have to go through the mandatory 14-day quarantine at designated hotels or centers.

Some may have the privilege to undergo quarantine with their family, but most of them have to do it alone.

For Twitter user Atieqah Roslan, her quarantine experience would be an unforgettable and traumatsing one.

The medical student recently came back to the country from India but found herself locked in the hotel bathroom after the door’s handle malfunctioned on her fourth day of quarantine.

The nightmare begins

At 10pm on 24 October, after watching some TV, Atieqah decided to take a shower so she didn’t bring her phone along. After she was done, she tried to get out but the door won’t budge, as turning the handle would not open the door.

A few hours passed by and after trying to open the door and even ramming it on multiple tries, she was desperate and climbed the bathroom ceiling hoping to find a way out but to no avail.

She then decided to try to get some sleep and planned to scream for help during breakfast service the next morning.

It was very hot in the bathroom since there were no windows and she started to overthink throughout the night to the point that she hoped that she was positive COVID-19 so that the medical personnel will have to come and look for her.

The clock is ticking

Unfortunately, no one heard her desperate cries for help the following morning, as her room was located at the very end of the floor.

She roughly knew the timing of the day as she can hear the azan (call to prayer) on the TV from her bathroom and hoped that they would find her during lunch service.

By now, Atieqah started to get anxiety attacks and was starving but no one came into the room to look for her, although someone pressed the doorbell and called her room’s phone multiple times.

Time had passed and it’s almost evening. Determined to get out, she got handy and tried to pick the door’s handle but after 20 hours with no food and clean water, she didn’t have the strength to continue.

She started to hallucinate, banged the door with a metal object and even left a will on the bathroom mirror in case she died by the time they found her.

Frontliner to the rescue

Finally, at 7pm, a few Health Ministry staff members came into the room to look for her and helped her out from her misery.

“Are you okay? We’re from KKM,” one of them said.

After she got out, they tested the bathroom door and true enough; it was faulty from the inside.

“Thank you to my neighbours who noticed that I didn’t collect my food since morning. I thought I’d die alone in the toilet,” Atieqah wrote.

The unlucky room with faulty bathroom door.

In the end, she was transferred to another room with a functioning bathroom door.

“I reflected a lot about life in the toilet. You should give it a try, guys,” she joked.

Recalling the harrowing incident, her Twitter thread has now received over 20,000 retweets and over 21,000 likes.

Netizens and friends were impressed that she managed to survive the traumatising incident and were glad that she’s fine. Some even shared their experience of being locked in the bathroom.

So, the next time you’re travelling alone, try to keep your phone with you at all times. RD