A Winnipeg mother says Walmart staff were slow to act and rude to her while she and her young son were locked in a store bathroom, forcing her family to call the fire department to get them rescued.

Crystal Cousins and her three-year-old son got stuck in a Garden City Walmart bathroom around 7 p.m. Wednesday, after she found she couldn't open the door.

"I guess the doorknob broke. I'm not really sure exactly what happened but we couldn't get out," said Cousins.

She alerted store staff to their predicament by calling customer service on her cellphone. About 10 minutes later, staff came to the door and told her they were calling a locksmith, said Cousins.

"I asked how long that would take, because my son was starting to freak out, and [the employee] said it should be within the hour," said Cousins. "I was like, OK, that's not ideal, but I guess if that's the only option."

'Panic attack'

After that, no one came to check on them, she said. An hour came and went, and Cousins said boredom and fear started to get to her and her son.

"I was texting my mom, and I [was] saying I was starting to have a panic attack," she said. "I'm getting dizzy. Little guy is with me. He's going from screaming and banging on the door to crying to thinking it's hilarious. You know, going through all those three-year-old emotions."

That's when she started going through all the worst-case scenarios.

[A staff member] just said, 'Sorry for the wait.' And I said, 'You know, that's not really good enough.' - Crystal Cousins

"What if they forget us in here and my phone dies? My phone is only at 10 per cent at this point. What if there's a fire and we can't get out? And I wasn't sure if the store we were at is 24 hours. I'm like, what if it closes and the locksmith is still not here?"

That's when her mother called the store and spoke to a staff member who Cousins had spoken to earlier. Cousins' mother asked how long it would take to get her out, but the staff member didn't know, said Cousins.

"So she said, 'We're really not comfortable with that. If there was a fire, they would be trapped. You need to call the fire department.' And he said, 'If you want the fire department called, do it yourself,'" Cousins said.

So her mother did call the fire department. Firefighters arrived around 8:20 p.m. — about an hour and a half after the two were first locked inside — and pried open the door.

"They came in. They made sure my son was OK. They tried to cheer him up, saying like, 'You've been rescued by firefighters. Isn't that exciting?'"

Walmart's response

Meanwhile, Cousins said store staff seemed more concerned about the damage the firefighters had done than her and her son.

"[A staff member] just said, 'Sorry for the wait.' And I said, 'You know, that's not really good enough.'"

She asked the man to meet her at customer service in a few minutes, after she took a walk to calm down. When he didn't show up, she had the man paged, but a different man came and spoke to her.

I am extremely disappointed in how we handled the event. - Store manager Barry Pederson

"This manager had no idea that there were customers locked in a restroom in the store, which is scary, because [what] if something had happened, if [the other man] was the only person who knew we were in there?"

Store manager Barry Pederson emailed Cousins around 4 p.m. Thursday, apologizing for the way staff handled the situation and asking to set up a meeting with her.

"I am extremely disappointed in how we handled the event," Pederson said in the email.

Pederson said he had begun debriefing the people involved and will review CCTV footage and phone records to better understand their response.

"[I] want to ensure that a situation like this does not happen again," he wrote.

A Walmart Canada spokesperson sent emails to CBC, saying staff attended to the customer "immediately upon being alerted of the situation."

"We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and frustration experienced by our customer," the email said.

"We are sorry to hear about the experience our customer had in our store," it continued. "Our store manager has since reached out to our customer to follow up on her concerns."