It’s really cold out there. Really, really cold. A good chunk of the country is still feeling the effects of the Polar Vortex, arctic cyclone, circumpolar whirl – or whatever you want to call it – and that means that a lot of people are blanketed by single-digit and even sub-zero temps.

How cold is it? Well, it’s apparently cold enough to make Andy Dufresne think twice about crawling through that river of filth to freedom – or something like that.

An inmate at the Blackburn Correctional Complex near Lexington, Kentucky had his escape foiled not by police, but by mother nature. 42-year-old Robert Vick voluntary turned himself in after just a day on the lam after he found the frigid conditions were too harsh to bear.

Maybe this had something to do with it:

Lexington, KY: Nation's biggest 24-hour temp drop right now. 55º at 4pm yesterday; 3º at 4pm today. #DeepFreeze

— TWC Breaking (@TWCBreaking) January 6, 2014

By the time nightfall hit, temperatures around Lexington had plunged below zero, with windchills in the minus 20s.

In all, Vick spent Sunday night and Monday afternoon out in the cold. When he’d had just about enough, he strolled into the office of a local motel and told the clerk to call the police.

“This was definitely of his own volition,” she said. “It’s cold out there, too cold to run around. I can understand why the suspect would turn himself in,” said a spokeswoman for the Lexington Police Department.

I guess Vick decided to cut his losses and figured he’d give it another shot in the spring. As a minimum security facility, it’s not like Blackburn is Shawshank or anything.

Image via Kentucky Department of Corrections