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Blogs by Annabel Sheila
Trapped - In An Elevator 8/11/2009 4:03:44 AM
On August 7th, in Trois Rivieres, Quebec, I spent 45 minutes trapped in an elevator with 12 other people. It was my worst nightmare!! I am claustrophobic! It was the most horrible experience I've ever had. The elevator jolted to a stop (a very hard jolt) on the 4th floor, leaving us to imagine the next thing that would happen. Most of us figured we would crash into the basement at any moment. The hotel staff were not prepared for such an “emergency”, and the whole incident was handed carelessly right from the start. It seemed to me they did not believe the situation was worthy of rapid action. In August, in a small space, with 13 bodies generating extra heat, and no way to get out, I really don’t know how I managed to hang on. Small spaces smother me, and but for my prayers, and my booklet that I used as a fan, I’m sure I would have passed out.
We rang the alarm in the elevator for 20 minutes, to no avail. None of the hotel desk staff realized we were trapped. At about 25 minutes in “hell”, we located a telephone near the floor of the elevator, behind a metal door that didn’t indicate there was even a phone in there for emergencies. There was no dial tone, and no instructions as to whom to contact. Someone on the elevator suggested we dial zero, which we did, and it contacted the front desk. The young lady who answered at the front desk asked us which elevator we were trapped in. It was laughable! The gentleman who was handling the phone in the elevator told her it was the one with the alarm sounding and the light blinking on the 4th floor. She then asked him, “Well if you were facing the elevators, which one would it be?” Astounded at her ignorance he replied, “Well do you mean from the inside, where we’re trapped, or the outside, where we would rather be?”
It took 45 minutes, an eternity to me, for a technician to open the doors, at which time we all bolted to the stairs to climb 5 to 7 floors to our rooms. My room was on the 9th floor, and once I reached it I collapsed and fell apart. My husband, who was extremely concerned, as he knows I’m claustrophobic, found me there a few minutes later after he climbed the 9 flights of stairs to get to me.
My husband had to locate the hotel manager the next morning, in order to get us a room on a lower floor that was manageable by stairs, because there was no way I was getting on that elevator again. The hotel is old, and so are the elevators!
Did the hotel compensate us for our experience?? NO! We paid for our rooms just like all of the other guests who didn’t get trapped on the elevator.
I’m sure the next time I get on an elevator, my blood pressure will rise significantly, but I’m hoping I can overcome it.
Anybody else out there ever have this experience? I would be interested to know what your experience was like.
