Wilson the volleyball was a great companion for a marooned Tom Hanks in the survival movie Cast Away, but as a prison guard?  It turns out he’s not quite as useful.  Two convicted armed robbers and inmates, Walter Pozo and Cesar Andres, escaped from a prison in the city of Neuquen, Argentina, after noticing that the guard in the nearest tower wasn’t actually a guard, just a football with a police hat perched on top of it.  The two men hopped a fence, donned overcoats, and just walked away.

Officials at the prison in Argentina’s remote Patagonia region claim that their fake guard was on duty due to budget cuts that allowed only two of the facility’s 15 guard towers to be manned at any one time.  “We’ve made a dummy out of a football and a prison officer’s cap, so that the prisoners see its shadow and think they’re being watched,” claims an unnamed prison source.  “We named him Wilson, like in the film Cast Away, and put him in one of the towers.”  This was later confirmed by a sheepish prison official.

While it’s not exactly Houdini, once the guys had escaped they’ve done a good impression so far.  Four officers were injured when a car searching the area for the two suspects crashed into a tree.  The prisoners are still on the loose; meanwhile, the facility has applied for more funding to hire some actual human guards.

Image:  New York Times

Tags: dummy, prisoners escape from jail after guard is replaced by a dummy, Neuquen, Argentina, prison guard replaced by a dummy, fake prison guard, armed robbers escape from prison, Walter Pozo, Cesar Andres

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