I just spent 20 minutes stuck in an elevator

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Heh. Fun stuff.

I decided to make a quick run to the bank, so I hopped in the elevator (I’m on the 5th floor of my building) to head downstairs. There were folks on the elevator already, and one of them was commenting to his coworker about how sometimes the elevator rides take a little longer than they should.

<cue dramatic music here>

So we get down to the lobby level, and…nothing happens. Door doesn’t open. We just sit there. We try pressing the Door Open button, and nothing. We push the button for level P1, just to see what happens. On P1, the door opens. Great! Obviously a temporary glitch. So we push L to head back to the lobby…and the same thing happens. Door won’t open. We head back down to P1. Still no open door. We head back up to 5. Door won’t open. And then the elevator takes on a life of its own.

We start moving up and down to random floors (we must have gone back and forth between 7 and 9 about five times). The elevator stops, but the doors don’t open at all. So we call the elevator company. They say to hang tight, and they’ll investigate. Great. I also call my coworkers so they can notify building security, who apparently has somehow managed to NOT hear us ringing the emergency button.

Meanwhile, we’re going up and down (and up and down and up and down). At least the conversation was pleasant. Finally, we get back to the lobby level for what is now probably the tenth time, and we can here security on the other side shouting at us. They ask us to try to hit the Open Door button, which we do for the umpteenth time, but still nothing. Then we can hear them fiddling physically with the door, but – guess what? We take off again. Down to P2 this time. There’s another security guard there shouting at us. He asks us to try to push the doors closed tight (“gently,” he says), but to no avail. He tells us that the elevator company should be out in about 15 minutes. And then he starts to tell us something else, but we take off again.

We hang out Floors 14 and 16 for a couple of minutes, lamenting the fact that we know that there is coffee and donuts on the other side of the door at 16, but we can’t get to them. Then it’s back down to P2. More shouted instructions, more helplessness from us. Back to the lobby. Back to P2. Then back to the lobby again. Finally, I guess they managed to shut off the elevator to keep us on the lobby level. They fiddle with the outside and tell us to try to physically pry the doors open, and viola! We escape!

Anyway, sorry for the long and rambling, but I haven’t ever really been stuck in an elevator before, and I found the experience rather amusing. Fortunately the two folks I was with were also light-hearted about the affair. And of course, it took me less time to run to the bank than the time I was stuck.

I’ve tried to tell my office manager that I was terribly traumatized and should be allowed to go home now, but she doesn’t seem to be buying it. :slight_smile:

2

As I told you… that is about the funniest elevator story I’ve ever heard… :wink:

3

That’s one goofy lift! About all that ever happens here when one goes wonky is that it goes to the lobby, opens the doors and turns off the lights. It’s as if it knows it’s sick or something.

Well, there was that one time that I was heading to the mailroom in the freight elevator, and the thing landed >hard< at the lobby. The doors popped open a half inch - I pried them open and climbed out as it had stopped about a foot and a half below floor level.

4

Stuck elevators give me a bit of the heebies – ever since reading about grievous bodily harm, let us say, suffered by individuals who tried climbing out of elevators stuck between the floors… :eek:

Glad your experience wasn’t nearly as heinous!

5

This made me think of when there’s a piece of fuzz that the vacuum cleaner won’t pick up, so you pick it up manually, look at it, **put it back on the carpet, run the vacuum over it again a few times . . . **

Shoulda gotten out on P1 and taken the stairs! :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Well where were you when we needed that info, smarty pants? :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

Yeah, believe me, we all regretted that decision afterward. But it’s made for good storytelling, and we’ve all vowed that should we run into one another again, we take separate elevators.

7

That is funny. Next time the door doesn’t open at your destination and it does open on the wrong floor, I hope you get out and take the stairs. Tell everybody you’ve already been there, done that and to have a fun time.

8

I did that once when I was about 15… gives me cold chills now, especially since I’ve read the accounts of the “grievous bodily harm”.

9

OK, second reference. I’m gonna regret this, but someone tell me what this about.

10

Yeah, I won’t be hesitating in the future, trust me. :slight_smile:

The thing I forgot to mention is that this particular elevator has been a bit wonky as of late anyway. Someone mentioned to me last week that it had been really slow to open after getting to a floor, and then on Monday and Tuesday of this week, the floor indicator read “13” no matter what floor you were on at the time. Should’ve seen it coming.

(Yes, our building actually does have a 13th floor. I’ve always thought skipping the 13th was incredibly silly.)

11

Basically, the elevator moves at the exact wrong time and you end up with a head in the lobby and a body in the elevator.

Happened to a maintenance man at my university many years ago.

Edited to add: This is in answer to the question about “grievous bodily harm,” obviously.

12

Remind me some time when I’ve got more time to start a thread about the time I spent two hours stuck on the escalator.

13

I was trapped in an elevator once, only for about 15mins.
The only other occupant was Anne Robinson
It seemed a lot longer

14

First off, that story is hilarious. My favorite part was when the security guy was trying to yell instructions and the elevator abruptly took off again.

Not to be a downer or anything, but here’s a link to a news story about aforementioned grievous bodily harm. Happened to a local college student.

15

Illustrated fictionally in the movie “Resident Evil.”

16

I’ve been stuck twice in one of the elevators at work, but the story Asmovian tells is scarier to me because the elevator was moving! :eek: I would have been frightened that it would have taken a fast dive on the way down. Glad to hear it all worked out!

I’m a baker in a cafe located in our town’s public library. One Monday I arrived at 4:30 AM, over an hour early, because I wanted to bake two large sheetcake layers for an afternoon retirement reception. They needed extra time to cool before icing. On the way up the elevator stopped between the basement and the first floor. There was nobody else in the building yet. So I picked up the emergency phone and found it wouldn’t work, just gave me a message that my call could not be forwarded. WTF? So it was about 6:30 before anyone else arrived to here the bell, and me pounding, and I got off of the elevator at 7:00 AM. So much for arriving early.

A year later, on Monday, Labor Day this time, I let myself into the library to go up to the cafe. The building would be closed that day, but I wanted to fetch some bacon grease I’d been saving for a family breakfast cookout. It was 5:15 AM and I was to go to the park and light the fires, so that everyone else could arrive at 8:00AM and get cooking. Same thing as last time happened, the elevator quit on the way up. This time the phone was still out of order, all it would do is call the front desk of the library and tell me the library wouldn’t be open that day. What saved me from spending a whole day in there is that I was missed at the park. My sister and cousin called the cops when they found out my car was at the folks house(they were out of town). Eventually, after questioning, they found my parent’s van at the library and called my boss, who came into town. Then they heard the pounding. Then the fire department had to be called, to get me out, and so while my boss, the cop, my family, and the firemen were gathered, the library director just happens to drive by. Sheesh! I charged out of the elevator not quite five hours after I got in, snorting like a released bull at a rodeo. As I pointed out to the director, if HE had been in that elevator for a whole day, like I could have been, he might have died, as he was a severe diabetic.

I am assured that the elevator works perfectly now, but the current yearly maintenance certificate is already a month out of date. I’m just glad I’m not claustrophobic. But if this ever happens again the elevator is going to be severely damaged.

17

Ahhh! It’s the Tower of Terror!

18

I was stuck in an elevator with 17 people for two hours. We were all in a class, on a hotel tour, and thought we could save time by crowding into the same elevator. We were packed liked sardines as it was, but it was even tighter because there was a large room service tray on the floor. Some of us took turns holding the tray above our heads to regain a bit of floor space. Surprisingly, no one freaked out, and no one was claustrophobic.

19

Yeah, but did anyone have to pee?

20

Sounds scary. I’ve always hated elevators, and the motion makes me unpleasantly dizzy. I imagine getting stuck on a moving one should bring shrieks of horror, uncontrollable panic, and perhaps some momentary unconsciousness.

I admire your calmness. And you’re quite lucky you didn’t spend too much time or it dipped down quickly <shivers at thought of it>