50 cents to use a payphone?!  I thought it was a quarter.


EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. -- Trying to get his 50 cents back from a pay phone has proved plenty painful for a man in Illinois.

Emanuel Fleming got his finger stuck in the coin return slot Tuesday for three hours.

After people at the scene couldn't get him loose, paramedics cut the phone off at the base and took both Fleming and the phone to the emergency room.  

Doctors gave the elementary school janitor a painkiller -- and then used a wooden device and lubricant to get his finger out.

Fleming said the phone was near a busy bus stop in East St. Louis. He said people who know him laughed at him as they rode by.