There might just be one good thing the Arctic blast has done to America. It has precluded some prisoners from escaping, if a recent tale of an escaped inmate - who handed himself back to the police because of the extreme cold - is anything to go by.
Robert Vick, 42, escaped from a minimum security facility in Lexington on Sunday. However, as he was faced with extreme cold, he went to a nearby hotel and told a clerk to call the police because he wanted to surrender again to the law rather than die in the deep freeze, Associated Press reported.
Vick reportedly told the clerk that he wanted to turn himself back in as he desperately needed to escape the Arctic air. The man was later checked by paramedics and returned to Blackburn Correctional Complex, Lexington police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts told the news agency.
"This was definitely of his own volition," Roberts was quoted as saying. "It's cold out there, too cold to run around. I can understand why the suspect would turn himself in."
Some places in Kentucky saw temperatures plummeting to as low as minus 17 degree Celsius, according to the National Weather Service. The 'Polar Vortex' that blasted much of the United States with record setting temperatures brought in the coldest weather conditions experienced in two decades, bringing misery to much of the US citizens.
The wind-chill in Comertown, Montana - located close to the border with Canada - made the temperatures feel as low as minus 52 C. It is, therefore, not surprising that an escaped inmate who would be wearing barely anything apart from his prison-issued khaki pants, a shirt and a jacket would soon chose to return to the prison than freezing to death.
Vick was serving a six-year sentence for burglary and possession of a forged instrument at the time of his escape, reports suggest.
