Trapped in the Elevator - How it Feels and What You Need to Do to Keep Yourself Going - My Real Life Experience

Getting trapped for long inside the elevator, midway between two floors is a very scary dream and I was one of those unfortunate people who had a taste of reality.

It happened with me a few years ago but the memories are still fresh. I was coming back to work after having lunch with my friends and we were 8 persons in all. Our office was in 3rd floor. We could have used stairs but as it always happens - who wants to strain the legs after a heavy lunch? The mistake we did is, all the 8 persons boarded the elevator where the maximum limit was 7 (we didn't notice that earlier).

We hit 3 on the buttons. It started going up. Probably it has almost reached 1st floor, and then it happened, a dreadful snapping sound and all of a sudden the elevator came down very rapidly. Fortunately for all of us, it didn't snap to ground, I think something was there which prevented that fall and allowed it to hang somehow. However we were down to the basement and one of the lights went off due to the jerk.

We were in a shock really and it took a couple of minutes for us to recollect ourselves, I rang the alarm. We heard people talking in the ground floor and running around - probably the security guards. We thought it's not going to be very difficult as the guys will pull this stuff out pretty soon.

After a few minutes the elevator started shaking and then it seemed to go up a little but then stopped right there. Almost ten minutes had passed by then. Again after few minutes we heard some sound and felt that it was moving but even after few attempts it refused to go up at all, just vibrating and shaking it's head saying NO to all the efforts.

Now the panic started to creep in, almost twenty minutes gone. Fortunately one of us got some signal in his cellphone, he called the security to know what's going on, they told that they have to cut the door to rescue us as it got completely jammed, but for that, the elevator needs to go up a fair bit to get the hold of the door.

After another series of desperate attempts the security was able to move it a little further upwards. It had already been thirty minutes. All of us were really scared by then, some of us was trying to keep the mood going by telling jokes. But the condition inside was getting worse, eight people, not enough air, only opening we had was the exhaust hole in the ceiling which was appearing too small by then.

Forty five minutes passed by. But we managed to keep our cool. We were holding each other's hand and singing together to somehow get rid of the fear. Finally we heard a crackling sound and then heard somebody shouting to pull the door open from inside. We jumped on it and were able to pull it open in our first attempt. Ah! There is the daylight.

Fify Seven minutes of wait came to an end. Although it seemed five hours.

We had a day which none of us will forget.