(VitalNews.org) – The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, is one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks and welcomes approximately 7 million visitors each year. Normally, however, those visitors do not spend the night sleeping on the tower after getting drunk and sneaking past the security team. Two American tourists have found themselves in hot water with Sete, the company that maintains and operates the Eiffel Tower, after doing just that.
The two unnamed travelers are said to have enjoyed a night of heavy drinking in the country’s capital before visiting the iconic tower. They managed to avoid security officers on patrol and made their way to a spot between the second and third level of the tower, so somewhere between 377 and 906 feet above the ground, an area normally not accessible to the public. According to Parisian prosecutors, the pair seemed to have become stranded in the area because they were too inebriated to make their way back down.
Police say that the two visitors had in fact purchased tickets at around 10.40pm, Sunday August 13, which allowed them access to the tower. They made their way to the upper platform, 906 feet in the air, but on the way back down decided to hop over the barriers and make their way to a place that was strictly off-limits to the public. That is where they got stuck and were forced to spend the night sleeping in the open air.
The snoozing pair were discovered by security patrols doing their morning rounds the following day. Firefighters with specialist training in removing people from extreme heights were called to the scene in order to retrieve them. The rescue was made, and the tourists were taken to a nearby police station to be questioned. The rescue mission delayed the opening of the Eiffel Tower by an hour. Sete, the Eiffel Tower’s management company, has vowed to file a criminal complaint against the drunken interlopers.
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