The modern elevator is more dependable and never breaks down provided it is maintained and serviced regularly. But it can happen when you are in the wrong place, wrong time. Photo by cottonbro studio
Jesus. Bob, what button did you push?
(Young executive saying to his colleague after the elevator falls in the movie Speed)
We had scheduled our long overdue departmental lunch and frankly speaking we were excited about it.
So when lunch hour came, the entire department “sneaked” out a couple of minutes early and headed to the elevators. Being early, we managed to catch one rather empty. Seeing that the entire department staffs were in the same elevator, I jokingly said that if the elevator malfunctions now, the company has no choice but to close down the department for the day.
Jokes aside, we managed to reach the ground floor without much event. We gathered at the entrance – one car cannot accommodate the entire department – there were more than 18 of us, so a decision was made to “ferry” the hungry troops in 3 separate cars.
Whilst waiting for the remaining staff to reach the ground floor, it was decided that the first 2 cars to depart first – the designated drivers and passengers were all ready to go.
The cars were on levels 2 and 3 and we could have walked but then our colleague who is also the “organizer”, we call him Mr. Romeo noticed that the parking elevator door was closing and quickly jumped to press the button to re-open it (besides, we were feeling a bit lazy to walk down).
We noticed that we were not alone – there 3 other big-sized guys in it. This is going to be tricky as there were several big-sized guys as well on our side.
Can the parking elevator take the pressure?
We walked into the elevator, waiting for the “overload” warning sound to go off. Nothing happened. Mr. Romeo was the last to enter and still no overload sound. Good, despite being big in size, we were within the safe weight limits.
Within “seconds” the parking elevator was full of my hungry colleagues and Mr. Romeo being the closest to the elevator buttons, pressed the “close” button. We had managed to squeeze most of us inside. It was less than 2 seconds after the button was closed, and we heard a loud noise – as if something had hit the metal casing of the elevator.
The elevator came to a sudden stop!
All of a sudden the buttons were not working but thankfully the emergency button was still operational. We managed to notify the building security of our situation.
“Hold on” was the only response given by a rather casual-sounding voice in the emergency speaker.
The good thing was the ventilation and elevator lights were still operational and after hearing the building maintenance guy’s voice on the other end, there were fewer reasons to get panic. We waited to be rescued and the irony of the moment, at least for me, is that I was more worried about having less time for lunch than about the fact that I was trapped in a fully occupied elevator.
To be continued…