A woman has credited Wordle with saving her life after she was rescued from a hostage situation when her family became concerned that she had not posted her daily attempt at the viral puzzle game.
Denyse Holt, 80, was held captive in her own home in Chicago for 17 hours after a naked man broke in through a window while she was sleeping.
Holt said she 'didn’t think [she] was going to live,' during the terrifying experience, but was eventually saved by police who arrived to perform a welfare check after her family members alerted them to her unusual behaviour.
'I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,' she said.
Meredith Holt-Caldwell, who lives on the other side of the country in Seattle, said that she grew worried after her mother did not share her daily score, and contacted police when she noticed she was reading her messages but not responding.
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'I never in a million years thought this is what was happening, but it was,' Holt-Caldwell said.
The scary ordeal began when the stranger broke in early in the morning on Saturday, February 5. Armed with a pair of scissors and bleeding after having cut himself on the window, Holt told CBS 2 Chicago that he proceeded to get into bed with her, before asking her to get into the shower with him so he could warm up.
She said that she was then dragged around the house while still in her soaking wet nightgown as he disconnected the phone lines, before being locked in a basement room for several hours until she was freed after police fired a stun gun through a hole in her front door to subdue the assailant following a lengthy stand-off.
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'I was trying to survive that’s all,' she said. 'I figured I could stay alive by not confronting him in any way, by making him in charge, by not disturbing him.'
Lincolnwood Police said that the man has a history of mental health issues and is facing charges of felony, home invasion with a weapon, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault.
Holt was unharmed, and her family says that they hope their story will remind others to regularly check in with family members who live on their own.
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Hannah Smith