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This is how cold it is: An escaped prisoner in Kentucky decided to turn himself in to stay warm. Authorities say 42-year-old Robert Vick escaped from a minimum security facility in Lexington on Sunday. As temperatures dropped into the low single digits yesterday, officials say the man walked into a motel and asked the clerk to call police because he wanted to go back to prison and escape the arctic air.

A police spokesperson says Vick was checked out by paramedics and returned to Blackburn Correctional Complex. A Department of Corrections spokesperson says Vick would have been dressed in prison-issued khaki pants, a shirt, and a jacket when he escaped; wind chill readings were 20 below zero yesterday in Lexington. (Elsewhere, a Chicago zoo had to move its penguins and polar bears inside.)