Firefighters free artist from plaster block; five arrested

A street art project ended faster than expected when firefighters were needed to free a woman from a block of gypsum plaster. Emergency responders were called to the scene when the woman needed more oxygen than what she could get breathing through a straw.

The woman was taking part in an art project on the Grotekerkplein in Rotterdam. She had climbed into a box which was then covered with layer upon layer of gypsum. Firefighters needed heavy equipment to extricate the woman. She was finally pulled free at about 4:15 p.m. “Artists were panicking when the gypsum became too hard,” a community police officer wrote on Twitter. Police responded to the scene took all five involved in the art project into custody, including the rescued woman. They will be questioned for endangering a life. “It does not matter that she herself chose to allow them to cast her in plaster,” a police spokesperson said.