Impromptu voyage leaves Vietnamese man longing for jail. Tuan Quac Phan, 29, was looking for a fishing job in Prince Rupert, Canada, when he decided to crawl into a boxcar to get a little sleep. Unknown to the slumbering Phan, the boxcar was loaded onto a barge and was towed to Whittier, Alaska. Phan spent five days in the boxcar without food or water.
Port officials in Whittier discovered the dehydrated Phan and turned him over police Sgt. Dan Jewell. When the unlucky prospective fisherman saw Jewell he kept repeating the words, “Jail better.” (Phan must have had 18th-century author Samuel Johnson’s quip about voyaging in mind: “Going to sea is like going to jail, though there is little chance of drowning in jail.”) After some medical attention, Phan was kept overnight and fed a big breakfast.
