Karen Perrin forced to claw way through wall after spending EIGHT HOURS locked in bathroom at work Karen Perrin got trapped while working late Friday night in offices of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in DC She is the wife of former Washington Redskins running back Lonnie Perrin Mrs Perrin ended up using metal tool to claw through drywall and insulation to reach doorknob Survivor: Karen Perrin spent night hours trying to free herself after getting locked inside a restroom at work For Karen Perrin, what started as an innocent trip to the ladies" room at work Friday night ended eight terrifying hours later with her clawing her way to freedom. Mrs Perrin, the wife of former Washington Redskins running back Lonnie Perrin, works as a senior assistant at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Washington, DC. On Friday, she stayed at the office until 10pm making travel arrangements for her boss, who was preparing to go abroad. She called her husband to let him known that she was going to head home in 10-15 minutes. With the details of the trip finalized, Perrin packed her bags but decided to use the restroom before going home. She left her cell phone at her desk. After emerging from the stall, the woman washed her hands and made for the door, but it turned out to be locked. It sounds crazy, but I went back into the stall and then washed my hands again hoping to change something,' Mrs Perrin told ABC News. Growing nervous, the trapped woman jiggled the latch, kicked it with her foot, but it would not budge. 'That's when it hit me,' she recalled. 'I'm locked in here.' Karen Perrin spent the next eight hours desperately trying to escape. Escape route: After realizing she was trapped, Perrin tried shoving paper towels under the door to draw someone's attention Fighting tooth and nail: The woman eventually got her hands on a metal rod and began hacking at the drywall until she finally made a hole big enough for her hand to go through it I felt hopelessness. I felt like I was going to die in there because of the anxiety I was feeling,' she told the station. Unable to call for help, Perrin started pulling paper towels and shoving them under the door in the hope of drawing the attention of a security guard monitoring surveillance cameras. "I probably put 200 towels out," Perrin recalled. But after nobody came to rescue me I realized I had to do something else. Looking for an alternate escape route, Perrin climbed on a chair and reached a hatch in the ceiling. Although she was unable to pull herself up, she discovered a 3-foot-long pole in the rafters. Famous spouse: Karen is married to former Washington Redskins running back Lonnie Perrin (right) In a scene straight out of the classic 1994 prison-break film Shawshank Redemption, the office worker clawed her way through the wall using the metal tool until she was able to make a hole big enough for her hand to reach through it and open the door from the other side. After two hours of hacking at the wall with the metal rod through layers of drywall and insulation, Perrin finally created an opening next to the doorknob, stuck her arm through it, bloodying it in the process, grabbed the handle on the other side and sprung herself free, MyFox DC reported. I felt like I was escaping a bad dream, like when you have a nightmare and you wake up and your heart is pounding and you realize, "Oh, I was just dreaming. Did that just happen. Am I OK?"" she said. Worried sick: Lonnie Perrin, pictured left in 1977 when he was playing for the Broncos, feared that something terrible had happened to his wife (right) when she failed to come home Karen immediately called her husband and daughter, who feared that something terrible had happened to her after she failed to come home, and were on the verge of going out to search for her. Mrs Perrin suffered contusions to her hands, but said she does not plan to pursue legal action. However, she hopes that the management of the building would put safety measures in place to prevent similar incidents in the future. Life imitating art: In the classic 1994 film Shawshank Redemption, Tim Robbins' inmate character spends two decades digging an escape tunnel from his prison cell with a rock hammer