Stuck in the elevator

I've often wondered how would I react if I would get stuck in an elevator. Would I panic? Would I be calm and do some Macgyver tricks to get out? Well, I don't have to wonder anymore what I would do, now I know what I do when I get stuck. I panic, I calm down and wait for someone else to do the Macgyver tricks:

Last Tuesday, as I was on leaving from work, I realized I forgot my cellphone on my desk. I decided to go back to the office to get it. I step into the elevator and press the button for 3rd floor where my office is. The door closes, but the elevator doesn’t move anywhere. When it finally moves, it goes to basement – but the door doesn’t open. I press “open the door” and 1st floor buttons but nothing happens.

First reaction? Panic. “I don’t have my cell phone with me and I can’t call anyone – office is closing at 5 and there's not many people in any more – will I be stuck here for the whole night? What do people usually do in these kinds of situations? Should I faint? Should I throw up?”

Second reaction: Calming down and assessing the situation. “It would not be wise to hit my head, so at least I should sit before I faint, if I will faint. Maybe better not to faint. Also, if I end up being here longer, it won’t be nice to sit in the small room with the puke smell, so better not to throw up either.” After this chain of thoughts I remember seeing a couple of my colleagues in the office just before I left, and I hope they will come and rescue me if I push the alarm button.

I press the alarm button. After a while I start to buzz in several different rhythms, and keep on buzzing for quite a long time. I hear some noises from ground floor, someone is banging the door, but that doesn’t help me much. “Maybe they are tired with the current buzzing rhythm, I better change the style.”

After getting tired of buzzing myself I sit down on the floor. I hear a noise from the elevator, and I notice that below the floor buttons there’s a little door, with a tiny dim sign of a telephone on it. I open the door with hopeful curiosity … “Could the picture mean that there’s a phone in the elevator??”

“YES! There’s a phone in the elevator! And it’s ringing! I’m not alone! Someone knows I’m in the elevator!”

A friendly employee from another office talks to me in a calm voice, and tells that she knows that I’m stuck, and she’s been stuck several times as well. She asks me to try couple of tricks with the elevator (push the floor buttons, push the open the door button), which I try, but nothing happens. She asks me to follow instructions on the phone panel (call the numbers as suggested).

I thank her for her instructions and read the phone instructions. I am slightly hesitant to use the phone, because the instructions say “only in emergency cases” – “Am I in an emergency enough to use the phone? Should I be more panicky before it’s an emergency?”

I decide I am in an emergency enough, so I call the elevator people, who then tell me that they called someone to come and rescue me. “It will take about 15 minutes” they tell. I ask what time it is, and I’m surprised to hear that I’ve spent about 40 minutes in the elevator already. Time flies when you’re stuck!

I call my boss (who happened to be in her office still) to tell I’m stuck in the elevator. I call Abdallah to tell I’m stuck in the elevator.I call back the friendly employee to inform her that I’ve called around the city and I’m now waiting for the elevator people to rescue me. She assures me that she won’t leave before she knows that I’m out of the elevator.

Since the phone is an emergency phone after all, I decide not to use it in a while, especially if the elevator people try to reach me on it. “No one else knows the number anyway.”

I sit on the floor, and try to do some yoga breathing, “Maybe that will save some air in case I have to spend my whole night in the elevator”. Soon I notice that the elevator sounds a bit like a boat. “Where I would be going if I was on a boat?” Obviously I’ve also noticed how small the elevator is (although it looks actually bigger when you sit on the floor) and I think about people who end up in jail and spend years in a tiny space like the elevator. “If I was in a jail, how would I spend my days in this space?”

I stare the phone and hope that someone calls me. No one does. I read the emergency instructions again and write down some ideas on how the instructions could be improved.

After a while I call the elevator people again for updates, and they tell me it’s going to take another 15 min before anyone is there. I ask for the time, and again I’m surprised to notice how time flies – I’ve been in the elevator almost 1.5 hours by now! I call Abdallah again and discuss what we should have for dinner, if and when I finally get out of the elevator.

Suddenly I hear some noises; sounds like someone is trying to open the door!

Someone is really opening the door! Dave the Elevator Hero opens the door from the first floor at the same time when my boss bangs on the door in the basement. It almost looks like she had a magic touch and she just opened the door by talking through it to me, but Dave the Elevator Hero takes the credit after all.

So, now I know how I react if I get stuck in an elevator. Now I know that there's a phone in the elevator. And now I also know that being stuck for 1.5 hours in the elevator is great for imagination!