getting trapped in a lift

Robsweezie · 15-07-2015 12:50am #1

any experience of this? I feel like im taking my life into my hands every time I go in one. I caught a faint burning smell in the lift today and thought '****, armageddon' I always get these intrusive thoughts and fears of the whole thing collapsing and just crashing into the abyss. theres always that moment of apprehension just before the door opens again as to whether it will or not, and how I would react/what to do if It didn't open as expected. Im an out and out claustrophobe.

PandaPoo · 15-07-2015 12:52am

Take the bloody stairs!!!

SpaceTime · 15-07-2015 12:54am

Have taken probably 8 trips in a lift maybe every weekday for the last 5 years. Never been stuck!

I'd say you're overestimating the risks just a tad.

freshpopcorn · 15-07-2015 12:55am

It happens to my aunt in England in the late 70's early 80's. I think she was there for a couple of hours. When she got out she got whiskey or brandy and tea/coffee. Think she enjoyed it because of the refreshments.

jimgoose · 15-07-2015 12:59am

Well they can't fall, because of the Otis gravity-brake. The confinement can be a little disconcerting alright

The Backwards Man · 15-07-2015 1:00am

I got caught in a lift with jimgoose once, never again!!

jimgoose · 15-07-2015 1:02am

The Backwards Man wrote: »

I got caught in a lift with jimgoose once, never again!!

That was your own fault. I told you that wasn't any emergency lever!

Magico Gonzalez · 15-07-2015 1:05am

got caught in a lift with my wife and the father in law once for about 2 hours. The most embarassing part was when i had to tell him that if we didnt get out soon I was going to have to try and piss through the miniscule crack between the doors. He just shook his head and looked disappointed.

Thankfully we were freed before the unforgivable had to happen.

SpaceTime · 15-07-2015 1:10am

That's why all lifts should have an emergency bucket.

Junkyard Tom · 15-07-2015 1:12am

I must admit I always look up for an escape hatch in the roof of a lift when I get in.

SpaceTime · 15-07-2015 1:14am

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

I must admit I always look up for an escape hatch in the roof of a lift when I get in.

Terrible idea. Most dangerous thing you could possibly do is climb out of the lift! It's very unlike the movies.

NachoBusiness · 15-07-2015 1:18am

Have severe claustrophobia.

I am terrified of lifts, being in planes, on the wrong side of the Luas / Tube when it's packed, being the middle passenger in the backseat of a car, etc etc etc. I can even get panic attacks just listening to people talking about trapped, like in Brian Keenan's book where he described how when they wanted to move him from location to location, they'd tape him from head to toe in duct tape, with only a small hole from him to breathe through. So yeah.. hate lifts, although if I had to get in one for a grand or something, I choose the ones with glass for sides so at least you could see out, even if you couldn't get out.

This would be me in an ordinary lift though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8xV8Y3rPuo

awec · 15-07-2015 1:24am

About 2 months ago the lift in our apartment building decided to act up. It would bring you to your floor but then the door wouldn't open and none of the buttons would work. It would go back down to floor 0, then up to the very top before back down again. Eventually it would bring you where you wanted and the doors would open, you just might be stuck inside for 5 minutes first!

obplayer · 15-07-2015 1:24am

Brought up in a high-rise I was stuck in jammed lifts a fair amount over the years. One time, I am about 7 or 8, I am stuck with a neighbours 6 year old brat who starts sniffling and whinging. Leading me to point out to her that 'we are never getting out!'. 'No-one is going to rescue us!'. 'No one can hear us, there is no point crying and shouting!' And similar calming things. (I've always been a gentleman

).
Of course by the time we got out you could have heard her roaring half a city away and my eardrums hurt, but it was worth it. As I said to my mum, when the brat informed on me, 'what did she think was going to happen, we were only stuck in the lift?'.

Canis Lupus · 15-07-2015 1:34am

SpaceTime wrote: »

Terrible idea. Most dangerous thing you could possibly do is climb out of the lift! It's very unlike the movies.

And not possible either. Lifts don't have escape hatches.

Grab All Association · 15-07-2015 1:41am

Statistics show you're more likely to die falling down a stairs than to die in a lift.

NachoBusiness · 15-07-2015 1:56am

Chris___ wrote: »

Statistics show you're more likely to die falling down a stairs than to die in a lift.

Fear of dying is not what the panic is about. It's a fear of being trapped / confined. People have killed themselves rather than be trapped for a moment longer.

I refused an MRI many years ago in Beaumont as it was the old type where you where pretty much slid inside a machine, felt like fecking coffin.

Had one last year in the newer ones in St James's and it was a breeze in comparison.

roverrules · 15-07-2015 2:04am

Just leave this here for anyone who might be worried

http://listverse.com/2011/12/23/10-tragic-elevator-accidents/

MadYaker · 15-07-2015 2:05am

I've seen enough shiity action movies to know there's always a panel in the roof that you can get out through.

NachoBusiness · 15-07-2015 2:17am

MadYaker wrote: »

I've seen enough shiity action movies to know there's always a panel in the roof that you can get out through.

There about as real as people having a 555 area code :P

corner of hells · 15-07-2015 2:18am

Canis Lupus wrote: »

And not possible either. Lifts don't have escape hatches.

You , clearly, are not using the right lifts.

The_Valeyard · 15-07-2015 2:50am

Japanese are installing toilets in lifts, in case of this sort of thing.

http://www.thejournal.ie/japan-toilets-lift-earthquake-2139764-Jun2015/

But the prize goes to Brazil for some of the best lift pranks

15-07-2015 3:01am

SpaceTime wrote: »

Terrible idea. Most dangerous thing you could possibly do is climb out of the lift! It's very unlike the movies.

,As a teenager in ballymun flats we regularly stopped lifts between floors and rode up and down.

15-07-2015 3:02am

SpaceTime wrote: »

Terrible idea. Most dangerous thing you could possibly do is climb out of the lift! It's very unlike the movies.

,As a teenager in ballymun flats we regularly stopped lifts between floors and rode up and down.

SuperS54 · 15-07-2015 7:38am

Some years ago I visited a supplier with an audit team, the lift was a very large freight type not your normal passenger type. We arrived early and took the lift to the floor we thought their offices were on, when the door opened there were no lights on in the corridor and I stood in the lift doorway to take a look and see if we were in the right place, the doors then started to close which my "it's too early in the morning to work" brain chose to ignore assuming the safety switch would cause them to open again...except it didn't because there wasn't one...Luckily I was standing square on in the doorway and was able to push myself back into the lift, a nice little adrenaline wakeup...the company failed the audit...

Timberrrrrrrr · 15-07-2015 7:43am

Working in a large corporate bank a few years ago and got stuck in one for 3 hours, Security called the engineer but took ages to get the doors open, started worrying a bit near the end, battery was down to 8% from playing angry birds.

SuperS54 · 15-07-2015 8:01am

Couple of weeks ago the set of apartment blocks I live in had a sudden power cut at 10.30pm, everything went dead, no emergency generators. There's at least 18 lifts in the complex and a nighttime engineering team of 2 maximum, neighboring high rises all had no power so resources were thin on the ground. With nothing better to do I went to bed, not the most comfortable as it was over 30 degrees outside and made even less comfortable by the screams and shouts coming from the lift which had stopped near my floor! Very glad I wasn't in one of the lifts, must have been horrid, minimal emergency light, sweltering temperature and a very slow response. Also very glad I live on the 5th floor of 36...assumed the complex had some sort of emergency generators that would at least power the lifts but it doesn't.

I think the link to a report on toilet facilities in Japanese lifts isn't such an odd idea, whilst listening to the screamers I was imagining what it would be like to be stuck in the lift and "have to go", especially a number 2! It's possible that it would all be on video and up on youtube for everyone's amusement before you'd even been rescued from the lift...

Samaris · 15-07-2015 8:44am

The Brazilian screamer prank is on the one hand kinda funny, and on the other, I know I'd go through the bloody roof if that happened to me.

I hate lifts myself, and always have. I always took the stairs if I could get away with it. Too small, too enclosed.

chanelfreak · 15-07-2015 9:00am

Got trapped in one with the other half about 8 years ago on a Friday evening just as we were leaving work. Rang the emergency bell yoke and got through to the engineer who said he was in Clondalkin and it would take him about 2 hours to get to Sandyford. Cue mass hysterics from me, so much so that the security guard in the building tried to prise open the doors with a crowbar (unsuccessfully). Finally got out about an hour later but it really was pretty damn horrific. Shudder.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k · 15-07-2015 9:05am

The thoughts of it, reading this thread, is enough to make me start panicking. I hate that split second the lift seems to delay after its stopped before you can open the lift.

UpCork · 15-07-2015 9:18am

I get panicky even thinking about it.

I think with me it stems back to when I was a child. My Mum worked in a big building and the lifts were old and unable, I think to take the volume of people using them. She'd often talk how the lift would get stuck or the door wouldn't open. As a young child, I didn't think much of it, but when I got to about 13 or 14 I had a major freak out at the thought and would take the stairs in most places.

Got a bit better as I got older. Hotel lifts abroad scare me, particularly as I go to Italy a bit and most of their hotels have tiny lifts. I usually just take the stairs no matter how high up my room is.

I get this recurring nightmare about being stuck in a lift. It is always in a high-rise, like something you'd see in Asia and I want to go to a Floor 10 or 11.The lift is always packed and I see the number moving closer to my desired floor, then it skips my floor and goes up up up until all have got out and I'm left on my own....then it starts to descend, same thing again, until it misses my floor again......then I usually wake up panicking and sweating and can't go in a lift for ages after it.

getting trapped in a lift

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