A Polish man who climbed a tree to avoid a several zloty (dollar) taxi fare on Saturday, may end up paying more than $4,000 for a rescue operation that involved two fire brigade units.
Pursued by an irate taxi driver in the northwestern city of Szczecin, the passenger climbed a tall tree, jumped from branch to branch and hurled bananas from a shopping bag at a crowd which soon gathered at the scene.
More than a dozen firefighters were called in and spread out an airbag under the tree as a police psychologist was sent up in a ladder-bucket to negotiate with the man, fire brigade spokesman Robert Tyczkowski told Reuters.
After a two-hour stand-off, the man agreed to come down, but may have to pay many times the original taxi fare he tried to evade.
Private Radio Zet reported the fire brigade was planning to send him a 18,000-zloty ($4,300) bill for the rescue operation.
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Climbing trees was expensive for Zacchaeus as well – he ended up giving away half his income and even more to cover his cheating. (Holwick)