setting a timeout

Here is a copy of a admin at my hosting copany "I am thinking because it involves uploading the program is just not
executing but yet hanging around and keeping httpd childs open until we kill
them off.  Could you set a timeout or somethiong on this script?"  How would I do this?  Here is the script.  Thanks for any suggestions/help.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
    use CGI;
      require '/home/dank/public_html/cgi-local/chat/locksubs.pl';

    $cgi = new CGI;

print "Content-type: text/html\n\n";


    if ($cgi->param('file') eq '') {
      &no_pic;
}
      $username = $cgi->param('USERNAME');
      $pics_dir = '/home/dank/public_html/cgi-local/pics';
    $filename = "/home/dank/public_html/cgi-local/pics/$username.gif";
    open(OUT,"> $filename");
    while($bytesread = read($cgi->param('file'), $buffer, 1024)) {
        print OUT $buffer;
    }
    close(OUT);
      &lock("waiting-count.db","$pics_dir",'3');
      open(COUNT,"<$pics_dir/waiting-count.db");
      $count = <COUNT>;
      close(COUNT);
      $count++;
      open(COUNT,">$pics_dir/waiting-count.db");
      print COUNT "$count";
      close(COUNT);
      &unlock("waiting-count.db","$pics_dir");      
      &lock("waiting.db","$pics_dir",'3');
      open(WAIT,">>$pics_dir/waiting.db");
      print WAIT "$username--$count\n";
      close(WAIT);
      &unlock("waiting.db","$pics_dir");

print "done. username = $username\n";

sub no_pic {
      print "sorry please give a pic to process.\n";
      exit;
}