Woman said she was locked inside Dorchester County dump just after closing time

KNIGHTSVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) – It was a scary night for a Summerville woman who said she found herself locked inside a dump in Knightsville Thursday.

Shelby Stone said she was throwing garbage into the dump not realizing how close it was to closing until she started to leave. “I pulled around and had to get in the trailer that I had garbage in … I’m standing in the back of my trailer, dumping things over the top – it was close to closing time and I knew that.”

When she was done, Stone said she got into her car and noticed it was a minute after closing.

“I went around the corner and the gate was locked. I was appalled. I got out of my car, and I just looked around and I yelled ‘is anyone here?’ Nobody was there. So, I saw a gap under the gate – I crawled underneath it and I walked to the convenience store and called my son to come to pick me up.”

Before she crawled under the fence, she was really concerned.

“It was very scary,” she said. “I thought I was gonna be in there overnight and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have my cell phone with me at the time, either. I didn’t have a phone to call anybody.”

When her son arrived to pick her up, she called the police and they helped her get her car from behind the locked gate.

“I don’t want anybody to lose their job over this but hopefully they’ll just make sure everybody’s out of there,” she said.

News 2 reached out to Dorchester County officials who told us it was an accident, and they will make sure employees check to make sure no one is still inside before closing in the future.

Shelby said she does have some advice for people who are thinking about stopping by the dump near closing time: “When it’s six o’clock, they mean it six o’clock, not 6:01.”

She said while it was a scary thing to happen, it’s a funny story she’ll be able to tell friends about from now on.