Verrrrry Interrrresting!
Posted on 04/21/2008 10:33:36 AM PDT by EveningStar
D'oh. Moderator, please remove if inappropriate.
I got stuck on an escalator for 4 days.
I hate you.
I hate you too.
When I was eight months pregnant, I was working on the 8th floor, 3-11 shift, in a hospital. I got on the elevator to go home and it immediately started jerking. I pushed the button to stop it. Took a few deep breaths, restarted the elevators, it started doing the same thing. It was going down, but very jerkily. So, I stopped it again. I was alone on the elevator.
I picked up the phone. A man answered and I told him where I was and what happened. “But- but- they were supposed to have locked down that elevator!” he said. He was a bit excitable. I didn’t think it was a good idea to tell him I was pregnant. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get you off there.”
Fortunately, I am not claustrophobic.
I waited. And waited.
I really couldn’t hear much. There was an air vent running, and that was about all I could hear. I kept listening for someone knocking on the outside but never did hear anything. I occasionally knocked on the door, but made surprisingly little noise.
I gave it 45 minutes, was still there, still heard nothing that sounded like rescue, so I picked up the phone again.
The same man was on the other end. I thought, this time, he was going to have a heart attack. “I thought they got you off of there!!” He sounded in a panic. He assured me that this time, they would get me off the elevator. Finally I did hear a noise, and banged on the door for all I was worth. When the door was pried open, it was about 5 feet off the floor, on the 5th or 6th floor if I recall. The security guard and maintenance guy pulled a chair over, I got down on the elevator floor, and they helped me wiggle my very pregnant self out of the elevator onto the chair and then down.
The security guard said “Wasn’t there a sign on the elevator door?”
“NO!” (Yeah, right, I’m stupid enough to get onto an elevator with an “out of order” sign).
“Oh. Well, there was a sign on the first floor.” (Sure, I could see that from the 8th floor, all right).
It turns out that the guy I’d talked to on the phone had called them, they’d knocked on the elevator door a couple of times, hadn’t heard anything, so they’d just locked the elevator down and gone about their business. Where they thought I’d gone in the meantime, I’m sure I don’t know.
I was fine. I’m still not claustrophobic and still have no problem with elevators. My husband, who had been waiting outside the hospital for me all this time and could not locate me, was in a panic, but he recovered. I hope the guy on the telephone did, too.
Thank goodness for cellphones!
“Never been stuck in an elevator but I was stuck on an escalator for a couple of hours once.”
Aw, cry me a river! I once tripped while on the “up” escalator and fell down stairs for an hour and a half!
I was in a building once where they installed a forty story elevator in a twenty story building. There I was, stuck 200 feet above the roof.
Fortunately I had two ten foot ropes with me. I would take the top rope, climb down ten feet and tie it to the bottom of the other. Did that until I got down.
Unfortunately, I had forgotten to push that big red button that says "Push in Case of Emergency". So I had to climb all the way back up, push it and climb back down again.
I was once locked in a malfunctioning elevator for about 90 minutes at the university I attended. As soon as it had shuddered and jolted to a halt, I’d pressed the emergency button, which activated a direct intercom to the police. They assured me help was on the way, so I just relaxed. Or tried to.
As time passed, I started getting a little nervous, but addressed it by singing stupid old songs. “All alone/by the tel-e-phone/waiting for a call/from yoooooouuu...” Let me be the first to assure you that I cannot sing, and listening to me is painful for normal humans. And what I did not know was that the intercom to the cops, once activated, latches on. The poor dispatcher had to listen to me warbling for the next hour.
Might’ve sped up my rescue, though...
I.E.
If the story had a "When Animals Go Wild" attack angle, I might even ping Shermy.
That had to be a frightening experience Susannah, and I, with bad hearing, probably would have had trouble with the phone or hearing anything going on to help me!
Lol, thanks Meek. That would be Panic time!!
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I got lost in Patterson New Jersey!
(true - and also a vintage MAD Magazine cover story!)
I didn’t know that, thought all Mad Magazine covers were crazy looking. [lol, I never read them]
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MAD Mag usec to put several story titles on the cover
I am probably wrong - It was most likely just one of the indide featured stories/comic strips
“What me worry?”
[“What me worry?”]
No, lol! You have a good memory for things like that though.
Then, I could combine the lady gets new butt by mistake story with the Chelsea gets felt up by a lesbo story with the lady finds 80-ft. alligator in her kitchen story.
Uhm, I think I need help with the headline...
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My sister put a printout of Alfred E. Neuman (the little guy often on the cover) on the inside of my door opening on the hallway
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