A LOAD OFF HIS MIND: Dave Chapman, of Waipopo, near Timaru, still isn't sure why he climbed into a clothes dryer while out drinking with friends.

Don't ask Dave Chapman why he climbed into the clothes dryer, it's an answer that eludes even him.

All he will say is the experience that followed won't be repeated.

His experience involves one pair of underpants, a Hoover 5050 ED heavy-duty dryer (with a 5kg load-bearing capability) and Dave.

He had been drinking with a few mates at Waipopo, near Timaru, on Saturday and went to change his clothes. When it came to finding a pair of undies to put on, Dave checked the dryer.

"By that time, I'd had a fair bit to drink; I don't know what flaming possessed me to get in it. I was trying to find these undies when everything just got stuck."

Dave, who still hadn't found the clothes to cover his lower half, managed to fit his head, shoulders and arms into the dryer in his search for appropriate clothing.

"I thought my undies were there, but obviously not."

Wedged in the 30cm-wide opening of the hot, recently used dryer up to his armpits, Dave let out a cry for help. By this stage, the heat from the dried clothes was getting to him. "I was panicking because there was no air," he said.

Thrashing around in a desperate bid to escape, Dave found his situation get worse. The dryer, which sat on another one, fell to the floor, on top of him. "Somehow I managed to move the whole thing. I fell over with it on my head."

His friends lifted the device back to its resting place, with Dave still stuck inside. Soon after they were joined by ambulance staff, a female police officer and the Washdyke and Temuka fire brigades.

A naked Dave found his nether regions exposed to the world. "They told me to remain calm and all that stuff. I said: 'Well you get in here'."

The fire crews took parts off the dryer, lifted Dave horizontally, and pulled him from his prison. He's still hurting a bit, with grazes and bruises, but he's glad to be free.

The dryer is back together, Dave is recovering and the undies . . . well, they were never there - the clothes in the dryer weren't his.

- Timaru Herald