In a case of stunning ineptitude, staff at an Orange County branch of Bank of America locked in an elderly diabetic woman after closing at the end of the day on Wednesday. The woman, Marian R. Prescher (73), went to the bank late Wednesday to access the contents of a storage box she keeps there. The bank shut up shop at 6 p.m., and employees apparently forgot to check the private room that she was in before leaving.

Around that time - I'm not clear on whether it was before she was locked in or perhaps as a result of being locked in - Prescher's blood sugar dropped into the danger zone. Fortunately, Prescher was discovered around midnight by a cleaning crew, whose members found her in diabetic shock - "unconscious and cold to the touch," according to a spokesman for the OC Sheriff's Department. The woman was treated in hospital for hypoglycemia and later released.

The is pretty serious. If she had not been found when she was, Prescher could have died. A friend told a reporter that Prescher's blood sugar had dropped to 20, which is dangerously low.

A statement came from Bank of America on Friday to say the incident is under investigation. I'm thinking they are justifiably sweating over the bad publicity this has brought the bank.