42 hours in an elevator, what it tells
Kerala resident Ravindran Nair’s 42-hour ordeal, trapped in a dark and dingy elevator, is really the stuff nightmares are made of. One must really appreciate the man’s tenacity for surviving the horror — without food, water, light, or any means of communication with the outside world!
The ghastly incident draws attention to the poor state of elevators in many of our public, commercial and even residential buildings, and more particularly, to the absence of an effective, foolproof system of communication and rescue operations in emergencies. A good alarm and communication system is the lifeline in case of an emergency, where every minute counts —but this is the most neglected part of elevators in India. Nair’s experience is typical. He kept on pressing the alarm or the emergency button provided in the lift, but there was no response! There was no other means of communication in the lift to contact anyone trained for rescue in such cases. The lift displayed emergency numbers, but there was no response from any of them when he called from his cell phone!
Even as he was desperately re-dialing those numbers, his phone fell and stopped working. So, he was stuck in the lift of the Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College from noon on Saturday till Monday morning, when the liftman reported for duty!
In March this year, 44-year-old Sahabuddin Molla’s leg was trapped in the gap between the floor and the elevator shaft at the Alipore treasury building in Kolkata, for two-and-a-half hours. As the lift door opened on the fifth floor and he was stepping out, the elevator jerked and went down a little, trapping his leg. In this case, too, the emergency alarm did not elicit any response. There were 10 people other than Molla, stranded in the lift. Finally, they called the police, who in turn called the fire service and the state disaster management authority — it took them two hours to free the 10 people and another half an hour to extricate Molla’s leg.
In such emergencies, delays could cost a life or a limb and that’s the reason why the emergency communication system must be infallible and the response immediate. Besides, many of these entrapments are tricky and the rescue operations should be handled by those trained for the job. If there is an alarm, it should be heard at a place where someone is always available 24/7, maybe where the security staff are located. If there are emergency numbers, those calls should go simultaneously to at least three first responders entrusted with the job.
More importantly, the emergency communication should not be dependent on the elevator user’s cell phone, because the person may not have it, or it may not work. So, there must be a provision for two-way communication at a height that is easily reachable by even a short person, or someone sitting in a wheelchair. Besides analogue, there should be a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone so that if one fails, the other would be available.
Today, many countries are mandating the most advanced communication technologies, keeping in mind the safety of elevator user. In fact, the International Building Code now requires emergency phones in elevators to provide for two-way video and text communication (through a keyboard), keeping in mind those who may have hearing problems or speech impairment. And our lifts do not even have basic phones, and nobody responds to emergency calls or the alarm bells — a gross violation of the consumers’ right to life and safety! This must change. Those regulating the elevators should not only ensure reliable communication systems, but also mandate that they be checked regularly. Failure should invite hefty penalties, and the victims should seek compensation and punitive damages from all those responsible for the upkeep of the lift, including the enforcement agencies.
I must also emphasise the need for liftmen/security personnel in public and commercial buildings to always check the lifts before locking the building. If only the liftman at the medical college in Kerala had followed this drill, 59-year-old Nair would not have had to go through that terrifying experience.
