I’m pretty sure I remember reading a news story of a similar situation in which one of the people jumping down out of the elevator lost his/her balance and fell backward into the elevator shaft. Be careful. Seems like it might be safer to climb up into the floor above.
If you really want to have a bawwwwww, imagine the elderly twin sisters who went on holiday abroad and got trapped inside their fold-into-the-wall bed! 
Or the guy who tried to get his mobile phone from a drain, and was found drowned, with just his feet popping out the following morning…
Elevator Death - a Sam Peckinpah movie.
It’s going up and down in the ratings.
::raises hand:: I broke a hip a few years back (osteoporosis). Luckily it happened at work, so help was there right away. If I’m walking, the phone is in a pocket. If I’m sitting, the phone is close to my hand.
Mom and I went to a concert, back in the 80’s. While we were there, my stepdad fell and broke his hip. He was on the floor until we got home. They had a wall phone, and he couldn’t reach it.
I don’t know if he could have dragged himself to the phone, even if it had been on a table. When I fell, I could raise my upper body a little bit, but I don’t know that I could have dragged myself anywhere. In any case, I would have been afraid to try.
And if there is a phone in the elevator, check it periodically to make sure it works!!!
I went to my cafe workplace once, on Labor Day, to retrieve some items from the cooler for a picnic that day. The cafe is in our public library. The elevator I entered got stuck, and I was in there for over five hours, because the phone wasn’t working. The only reason I wasn’t there until work the next day is because I was expected at the picnic, and when I didn’t show my sister and cousin went looking for me.
I was pissed because almost a year to the day before I’d got stuck in the same elevator for over two hours. I’d arrived early for work, and when the damned elevator stuck the phone wasn’t working! Now, every year, I nag maintenance when the elevator safety certificate expires. They don’t like it but I don’t care.
Did those actually happen or are just hypothetical scenarios? 
Several years ago, we were surprised that no one answered the door when we arrived at my in-laws house for a vacation. We let ourselves in and soon heard muffled voices. We discovered that the voices were coming from the elevator, which was stuck between the second and third floors of their home. They shouted out instructions for how the elevator could be opened from the outside, and in not too long Mr.Q managed to open the doors. There stood his parents and aunt and uncle, looking a tiny bit sheepish and a good bit relieved. We hauled them out of the elevator and everyone was just beginning to laugh about it when the elevator service guy showed up.
This story makes me glad that their elevator has a functioning phone, but personally, I’ve never been able to trust the darn thing. It’s the stairs every time for me.
We like to tour homes here in Vegas, and have noticed most of the newer homes with multiple floors now include an elevator. When I asked, I was told they cost about $20,000 - $40,000 to install, but worth it so that older people could remain in a house with lots of stairs. He said most (younger) homeowners just used them for heavy items they bought (cases of water, wine, beer and groceries) and didn’t even ride up - just send it up (or down) to the floor with the kitchen and unload it there. Sort of like an electric dumbwaiter.
I too wondered about the safety if it stuck. These newer ones did have an alarm you could set for your alarm company (standard in large homes like this), and there was a telephone installed in all of them.
The real estate agent also told me the doors open automatically, or by hand. Worse case scenario, you could easily open the door and could slide out to the lower floor, or climb up to the next - shutting off the switch to make sure it didn’t come on again. Granted, no easy feat for someone in their 80’s or 90’s, but might have helped with the heat factor (but not for four days!).
Horribly sad story - but does sound like this couple had an older model elevator.
And of course, there’s this story and video which still gives me the heebie jeebies.
The drowning while trying to retrieve a phone from a drain is a real news item too. A teenager in, I think, Australia was recently rescued from a similar predicament, and I also recall a similar article on Fark several months ago.
That is a great link. It is one thing to go 41 hours locked away to test your fortitude and quite another to do that time locked in an elevator and have no idea if or when anyone will come to get you.
I think I’d probably go insane just wondering if I’d ever get out.
I wonder: do all elevators have a safety door above? I can see an old couple not even being able to consider that as an option, but (hopefully) a young, fit guy like me could get to the roof of the car, then climb up to the next floor and get the doors open? Hopefully?
Until I find out, I’m avoiding all elevators.
I wouldn’t even say “elderly”. I have a friend who is just a bit older than me whose father (probably the same age as my own, mid-50s) had a stroke and was on the floor for three days before anybody found him. People had called him in that time but nobody thought to go over there and physically check on him.
My parents live across town and I like it that way. I also have a key to their apartment so I can get in easily if they don’t answer their phones or their door when I show up because they didn’t answer their phones.
I’ve thought of moving away but I like it here. When that changes, I will definitely work very hard to convince them to come with me wherever I go.
I used to work on the 6th floor of an older building and the elevator was notoriously wacky. I and my co-workers usually took the stairs, but one day, I and a co-worker rode it up from lunch (I was 7 or 8 mths preganant and 6 flights was a bit much at the time!).
Damn thing got stuck between floors for over an hour. The SCARY part was, we started smelling smoke/burning, and couldn’t tell if it was limited to whatever electrical component had caused the breakdown or if the whole damn building was on fire! :eek:
There WAS a working phone and we called, but hearing, “Ok, we’ll be there ASAP” is of little consolation under the circumstances.
I fought off freaking out by sitting on the floor and reading the book I had with me. We were rescued before too long.
I also don’t have my cell phone on me at all times (and back then, in 1999, didn’t even HAVE one) but I have noticed that in the elevators on campus at my university, you lose all reception as soon as the doors close.
The curse (in this case) of the Faraday cage.