I’ll be the first to admit it: I am far from perfect. I have memories that I cringe looking back on. I have things that make me say, “Jeff, you’re an idiot.” This is the story of one of those moments.
One night, a week or so ago, my six friends and I decided to take the elevator in White Hall (yes, the one marked “NO MORE THAN FOUR PEOPLE”) to the fifth floor. Think about it: Would you want to drag yourself up four flights of stairs just to “meet up” at the top with your friends who took the elevator? I didn’t think so.
As we all pile into the tiny box, we exchange glances of apprehension. But since we were still under the weight limit that the state-certified elevator claimed it could lift, we figured it wouldn’t (shouldn’t) be a problem.
We were wrong and we knew it instantly. The lift got off to an impressively slow start as the doors ominously and difficulty closed. Of course, there are no sensors in the door; so trying to get off was swiftly thwarted by the heavy, determined doors. One of my pals said, “We’re not going to make it,” and we all laughed at him.
We all laughed as the elevator breezed past floors one and two at a nearly unnoticeable speed. We chuckled through the 15 seconds it took to pass the third floor, watching the elevator actually slow down. I’m not talking anything slow like last place in the Indy 500: I’m talking slow like melting an iceberg the size of West Virginia with a hair dryer.
We merely stood in awe as 30 seconds dragged by with the fourth floor. Before the light even ticked up to the fifth floor, the elevator ground to a halt. This was not surprising, as it was exponentially close to not moving anyway. But with a final shudder, the elevator topped off a foot or two short of the fifth floor.
My friends and I looked around with the utmost horror. There was an atmosphere of “oh, shit” in the air so thick you could taste it. Next, the fingers started to point: “You definitely shouldn’t have gotten on.”
“Well what about you, you’re huge!”
We realized that we didn’t care whose fault it was, just as long as we got out of the elevator. We all took turns pressing the door-open button, silently praying that one of us would have some sort of magic touch that would cause it to let us out between floors. We tried pressing all the other floor buttons, but avoided the “Emergency Services” button, because that was for emergencies only.
Everybody started to look around for a trap door, or a secret exit. I looked up to find the ceiling vent one can always find on an elevator covered with a metal plate and painted shut. That meant no air was getting to the seven people stuck in the tin box of doom. One kid started banging on the door, hoping somebody on the fifth floor could hear us and (somehow, I still don’t quite understand the logic) rescue us.
In the meantime, the air was slowly reaching the level of stifling. The temperature was rising enough so that we were all sweating, and carbon dioxide was gradually taking oxygen’s place as the prevalent gas. It was time to panic. “We should call emergency services,” one girl said.
“This isn’t a real emergency, just calm down,” another guy said.
She replied: “This is about the worst thing that could happen to somebody in an elevator. We should definitely call emergency services.”
We finally decided that we needed to push the button. Once pushed, we could hear a phone ring through the speaker. A lady picked up: “Emergency services; How can I help you?”
“We are stuck in an elevator in White Hall, can you send somebody to open the door?”
“I’m going to put you on hold,” she said.
This was not acceptable. We were not in a position to enjoy waiting on some faceless controller to finish up her cell phone conversation, but we waited anyway. The phone came back on.
“I’m sorry, what was your problem?” she said.
“WE’RE STUCK IN AN ELEVATOR!” we all cried in unison. Now, normally when you are an emergency services worker, you keep your head in situations like this because it is comforting to the victims. If the emergency worker gets upset, it only makes the situation worse. With that in mind, this is what she said:
“Oh my lord! That’s never happened before! Oh dear!” Then she hung up. Let me repeat that for you: The emergency services worker we called to help us out of the death box hung up on us!
I got angry, and one of the kids tried to pry the door open with the sole of his dress shoe. I took off my sneaker and together we slowly pried the reluctant door open. There was a step for us to climb up and everybody got off. Then we went downstairs to cool off. As we sat in front of the dorm, we looked for a police officer or an elevator repairman to walk by; just to see how long we would have waited. Four hours went by, and nobody came to our aid.
If we hadn’t pried ourselves out of the elevator with my shoe we would probably still be stuck right there, even as you read this now.
– Jeff Swoboda is a freshman journalism major.
