If you’re gonna run from the cops, maybe don’t choose a tunnel with no exit as your getaway route.

That was the situation in Columbia, Tennessee, where a man trying to avoid arrest ended up wedged in a storm drain, waving for help like he dropped his car keys down there.

Here’s how it all went sideways:

Police showed up on Thursday, April 3, to check on Gabrielle Sheffield, an 18-year-old with outstanding theft warrants. When officers tried to detain her, she took off. Enter: Ty Harrington, 19 years old and apparently feeling the adrenaline, who spotted police chasing Sheffield and decided to bolt too.

Spoiler: he wasn’t even the target. But nothing gets your legs moving like guilt—or panic.

Sheffield was caught pretty quickly near Andrews Street, thanks to a well-placed squad car. Harrington, on the other hand, pulled a move straight out of a cartoon and vanished into a storm drain like a raccoon on a mission.

Then it got weird.

Around noon, a neighbor called 911 with one of the best dispatch lines of the year:

“There is a man stuck in a drain. He is sticking his hands out waving, trying to get someone’s attention.”

Let that sink in for a second.

The caller said they didn’t see how he got in there, just that there was definitely a pair of hands sticking out of the street, waving for help.

Fire crews rushed to the scene on Woodland Street, popped off the storm grate, and pulled out a 6-foot-3, 180-pound suspect, completely soaked and completely out of hiding places.

“He came out and he was all soaking wet,” said neighbor David Gilliam, who witnessed the drain-side extraction. “I was here when they pulled him out and everything.”

Harrington was arrested without incident and charged with evading arrest—which is ironic, since he didn’t really “evade” anyone. He just relocated to a metal pipe under the street and got stuck like Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit’s front door.

The takeaway?

If your grand escape plan involves crawling into a storm drain like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, maybe rethink your life choices.

Also: if you’re not the one police are looking for… maybe just stay on the sidewalk.