PhotoAlto/Antoine Arraou via Getty Images Firefighters initially thought a woman who asked them for help removing chastity belt could be a victim of domestic violence. However, she revealed she was wearing the device voluntarily.

A woman in Italy walked into a fire station last week because she had lost the key to her chastity belt and needed help removing it, according to local newspaper Il Messaggero.

The 60-year-old initially told fire crews in the northern city of Padua that she needed help opening a padlock, The Telegraph reports. When firefighters asked the woman where she lived, thinking she'd locked herself out of her house, she lifted her sweater and showed them the iron device.

After cracking open the lock, they investigated whether the woman, whose name has not been released due to Italian privacy law, was a victim of domestic violence who may have been forced to wear the chastity belt.

But the woman told the firefighters she wore it because she was worried about the incidents of sexual violence she saw on the news, Italian news outlet TGCOM24 reported.

Neither the woman nor the fire department have further commented on the incident.

Also on HuffPost: