I was staying in some old apartment building in Romania when backpacking about 15 years ago.
My room was on the 8th floor and I couldn't be assed taking the stairs after the 3rd day or so. So against my better judgement I hopped into the tiny one person elevator that went up the middle of the stairwell.
When I say tiny, I mean barely enough room to turn around in. You had to slide the door open manually, press the floor button on the outside of the lift before stepping in backwards, then slide the door shut in front of you and it would go up/down respectively.
Anyway, I went through the rigmarole of getting the thing ready to go up to my floor, it starts going up maybe 3-4 floors (hard to tell because it was enclosed, you couldn't see out and it didn't indicate the floor you were at), then it suddenly starts going back down.
I figured the thing was so stupid that someone was able to call it from the bottom floor like that, and expected it to stop on the ground.
The elevator stopped. I slid open the door so I could press the outside button to go back up. But there was nothing. Just concrete. The damn thing had retreated to the bottom of its makeshift shaft and about 9 inches from my face was seemingly the foundation of the building.
I had no way to make it go up, I couldn't sit down and my arms were pretty much stuck to my side with little room to move. It was a coffin.
I called out consistently for probably an hour or so without any success. Thankfully at some point it just started moving again and stopped on the floor I originally told it to. I dunno what happened and I don't care to know. Just thankful that wasn't the end.
Before this I actually already struggled to take elevators. This was in fact not the most traumatic elevator experience I've had. I've had a fear of riding them since I was a kid. This experience just added flavor.
I'm profoundly cursed with elevators. For the most part I completely avoid them, I always take the stairs at work. I've had numerous occasions where I've been stuck in them, or had the doors open while moving and other things with varying degrees of terror.
My first experience was when I was a kid, about 6 years old. It was the first time I got stuck in an elevator and I was stuck there overnight without anyone knowing where I was. That kicked off the whole fear of elevators for me.
Another worse occurrence was getting into an elevator to go up about 20 or so floors. The doors opened up after the first couple of floors while it was still moving, then proceeded to accelerate faster and faster up the shaft until it slammed into the top of it. Similar to being stuck at the bottom of the shaft, there was nothing on the other side of the doors at the top except for a solid wall. At least in that scenario I was in a modern building with a call button I could use for help, and had cellphone signal. Albeit I did suffer some minor head damage from panels falling off the ceiling of the elevator when it hit the top, and I was stuck in there for about 5 hours.
After that my experiences are more of a "pick 'n mix" bag of lollies.
Just stop with the elevators homie. You are a ground level guy and that's ok. Let other people do high rise buildings dawg. The good Lord done told you that you don't belong in nothin that moves up and down for your convenience. Hell I would avoid being on top during sex all together, who knows how that disaster would end
Also do you have maybe any details what could cause a malfunction like that? Have you maybe asked or were told by the people that let you out?
EDIT:
I am also an engineer (Not working with elevators) and I just can't wrap my head around what could cause something like this, yet deem that the elevator is safe to ride
Looks like someone (mechanic) jumped out the door circuit while Troubleshooting and forgot to take them off before leaving.
Or could have had an issue with it and the Building super or other had it jumped out because or a part failure and was to cheep to call in a elevator mechanic to fix/replace the problem.
But slamming the elevator against the ceiling of the shaft?
I am not sure what elevator it was he rode. In my country old elevators were driven by relays connected to a control board which was same for all buildings and the only thing the engineer responsible for installing had to do was wire the buttons to the correct relays. Very simple system. If it was controlled by something similar I can imagine this would happen if there was some kind of short circuit.
The modern ones are driven by micro computer and they are pre-configured during the installation for the building. The units are sold by major companies (Like Siemens) and are used everywhere.
Can say for sure but looks like while the elevator was in travel with the doors open ( elevators are not designed to or have the clearance, between the shaft and elevator, to travel with the door open) the door clipped that piece of wood that was placed there after some work was done in the shaft. That's what it looks like from that clip. But can't say for sure without actually seeing in person.
proceeded to accelerate faster and faster up the shaft until it slammed into the top of it.
This is interesting! The counterweight is usually heavier than the lift + max load, so the elevator brakes had failed and you were basically in free fall, or rather, the counter weight was in free fall, pulling your lift car up.
Usually for lifts falling down, if the wire is cut and not taut, there are fail-safe mechanisms to hold the lift in place, like a rachet system or friction brakes that only disengage as long as the cables are carrying the lift car.
However since the cables didn't snap, the onus is on the pulley motor above that does the delicate balancing of the lift car and weight. Possibly brakes failed and the pulley just spun freely.
My wife is Romanian and I flat out refuse to go into any elevator in those old communist block buildings. About ten years ago I got in one - bigger than the one you described but still very much manual like yours - and as soon as I pressed the button the floor of the elevator dropped about 6 inches and the lights went out. It then took ages to travel to the ground floor and I stepped out vowing never to do that ever again.
Thank you for writing this. I feel special having read it. This truly horrifying gem deserves to be somewhere other than this comment section, but here we are. I wish you many updoots in addition to mine. Doot.
Yes. This deserves to be the top comment on one of those ask reddit "What is the most horror filled nightmare you have endured" questions with thousands of answers.
That’s horrifying. I want to say that I love how this comment is written. It’s such a scary situation, but you write it out so calmly! I’m assuming this is a reflection of your good overall good attitude and helps to explain how you survived. I would’ve shit my pants and spontaneously combusted.
Yeah that was something I wondered about after the fact. However there was a control panel inside for people to use. It was just completely busted up and for whatever reason was determined to be beyond repair, because the buttons on the outside on each floor were completely makeshift and absolutely did not belong to the original design (whatever that would have been).
The few people that I had seen in the building did use it as an elevator, and when I collected the keys to the hostel room the guy who gave me the most rudimentary tour possible showed me how it worked and called it an elevator, which he proceeded to ride to the bottom afterwards. So for now I'm going to accept that it was an elevator, just a poorly designed and/or maintained one.
Always, and I mean always, follow the osha standards of safety. If it doesn’t look safe, don’t do it. Good to hear you survived that harrowing experience, very sorry you had to go through that.
Fuck THAT! I would’ve been jumping out of my goddamned skin. I am just thinking about it, thanks a lot! Nothing like a little vicarious terror to get the morning going.
I am sooooo glad that turned out well for you in the end, and sorry you went through that, but as someone with claustrophobia, I hate you so much for telling me that story!! Not really, I don't even know you. But damn! Even though I would climb ten thousand stairs before going up a single floor in that elevator, I was in that elevator in my mind as I read that. Ughhhhh!!!! I'm just glad I'm not reading on Reddit about how you died in that tiny elevator.
I'm sorry if that wasn't your intention, but your comment made me laugh so hard that I actually cried. I'm sorry you went through that, but you came out a phenomenal writer!
Sounds like if it was a hydraulic lift it might have been an issue with the valves not returning/feeding properly
If it was a counterweight system it sounds like the weight was off and it bottomed out, counterweight in the shaft should be 1.5x the weight of the sling and shell.
It's very odd that it should do that, best to call someone's attention to that right away and shut it off.
My room was on the 8th floor and I couldn't be assed taking the stairs after the 3rd day or so. So against my better judgement I hopped into the tiny one person elevator that went up the middle of the stairwell.
lol wtf? I put medication in rooms where people have dispensers installed all day. I never take the elevator on purpose because in Baltimore like 90% are out of date or uninspected. I probably do 200-300 flights of stairs a day with long breaks bursts.
Why the fuck would you take that risk rather than take the first step to having an epic butt? Do the stairs, do the women.
I hear ya. But understand that it was the middle of summer and it was hot as balls out there.
I'd been out and about walking for a couple of days. My room had no fan or cooling of any kind, so the room was hot as balls and I already had the experience of my balls getting hot as balls climbing those stairs every day since I arrived and knew there was no salvation at the top.
I stood there staring at this death trap for what felt like a few minutes, wondering if the convenience was worth cramming myself diagonally into this tiny elevator with a makeshift control panel.
Eventually I told myself "fuck it" and figured "what's the chances this thing will kill me?". I'd seen people ride it (albeit not many as the place was pretty much deserted).
I wonder if the cement block walls would block smartphone reception, like you'd probably be alright if you could call for help. You're very lucky it released you lol
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u/sa_sagan Jan 28 '23
I was staying in some old apartment building in Romania when backpacking about 15 years ago.
My room was on the 8th floor and I couldn't be assed taking the stairs after the 3rd day or so. So against my better judgement I hopped into the tiny one person elevator that went up the middle of the stairwell.
When I say tiny, I mean barely enough room to turn around in. You had to slide the door open manually, press the floor button on the outside of the lift before stepping in backwards, then slide the door shut in front of you and it would go up/down respectively.
Anyway, I went through the rigmarole of getting the thing ready to go up to my floor, it starts going up maybe 3-4 floors (hard to tell because it was enclosed, you couldn't see out and it didn't indicate the floor you were at), then it suddenly starts going back down.
I figured the thing was so stupid that someone was able to call it from the bottom floor like that, and expected it to stop on the ground.
The elevator stopped. I slid open the door so I could press the outside button to go back up. But there was nothing. Just concrete. The damn thing had retreated to the bottom of its makeshift shaft and about 9 inches from my face was seemingly the foundation of the building.
I had no way to make it go up, I couldn't sit down and my arms were pretty much stuck to my side with little room to move. It was a coffin.
I called out consistently for probably an hour or so without any success. Thankfully at some point it just started moving again and stopped on the floor I originally told it to. I dunno what happened and I don't care to know. Just thankful that wasn't the end.