Tourist locked in London bookstore tweets for help

LONDON, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. tourist locked inside a London bookstore when it closed turned to social media for help escaping the shop.

David Wills, a Dallas resident visiting London, posted to Twitter and Instagram Thursday night saying he had been browsing the upstairs area of Waterstones bookstore for about 15 minutes and he came back down to find the store was closed and he was locked inside.

The posts said he had spoken with someone and was expecting to be released soon.

An hour later, however, he posted to the Waterstones Twitter account that he had yet to be released.

London police arrived at the store to release Wills at about 11:20 p.m., just over two hours after the tourist realized he had been locked inside the shop. Police were believed to have been tipped off by one of the people following Wills' ordeal on social media.

Waterstones and Wills both announced the release on Twitter.

There was an outpouring of support for Wills -- and jokes at his expense -- on Twitter during his ordeal, with posters calling on the bookstore to "free the Waterstones one."

Waterstones joked about the incident Friday with a blog post offering reading suggestions for anyone with "two hours on your hands" due to being "locked in a bookshop."