Wordle has become a global sensation
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Wordle has been hailed for helping to save the life of an 80-year-old woman locked in her own basement by an armed intruder in a 20-hour hostage ordeal.
Denyse Holt was awoken by a naked man armed with a knife after he broke into her Illinois home in the middle of the night.
The shivering man climbed into bed with the retired teacher and threatened to “cut her” if she screamed or ltried to use a phone.
He locked her in the basement bathroom without any food, medicine or means to communicate with the outside world.
She told the Washington Post after: “I don’t want to die like this, and I don’t want my kids to hear that their mother was murdered.”
But thousands of miles away her daughters on the West coast became suspicious when their mother didn’t send them her daily score on Wordle - a puzzle in which solvers have to figure out a five-letter word in six guesses.
“I didn’t send my older daughter a Wordle in the morning. And that was disconcerting to her,” Holt told Chicago’s WBBM.
With their mother not responding or even reading their texts the worried daughters enlisted the help of a neighbour.
He found no answer at the door despite Holt’s car still being in the drive and called the police.
Swat officers eventually burst in to hear her shouting “I’m here! I’m here! I’m here in the basement!” and freed her.
Using non-lethal weapons they were able to subdue and arrest the alleged knifeman, named as James H. Davis III.
It is believed said he was experiencing a mental health crisis when he burst into the home.
“I still feel lucky to be alive,” Holt said. “I never thought I would come out of that alive.”
Mr Davis III has been charged with home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated assault, and denied bail.
