Ronnie Chapstick

Jersey City, New Jersey, July 31, 2013:

It was an unusually tight-lipped call for help.

The frightened man on the phone could only grunt as he pleaded for an ambulance to be sent to his home.

The 911 call, received around midnight yesterday, sparked fears that local politico Ron was being held captive. But it turned out he had accidentally super-glued his lips together.

"Our ambulance received a call, but due to the muffled speech...they were unsure whether it was a medical event or whether someone had been gagged," Sgt. Marc Aitken said.

"Basically, he could only grunt."

Ambulance staff called the police, who went to Ron's home and found that he had mistakenly applied super-glue instead of lip balm to his lips.

"He got up in the middle of the night, in the dark, and grabbed what he thought was the tube of [lip balm]," Aitken said.

"It was an extremely frightening event for him because his breathing was impeded."

"You wouldn't have wanted to have had a blocked nose. And the mustcahe on that guy was pretty significant that it may have blocked his nasal air passage."

"Plus [Ron] was apparently still drunk from the night before. The EMT team said the place reeked of [booze]. It wasn't a typical call or operation, that's for sure."

"I've heard of a few other things super-glued, but never lips. In fact, our records show we had a glue incident at that address back in 2007." (See Coming Unglued)

Ron was taken to a local hospital and has since been released. He refused to comment on the incident.

Posted by Bittle at July 31, 2013 10:38 AM