Five Floors Up

Today I was trapped on an elevator for 35 minutes. This wasn't one of your "'I'm stuck for a few seconds, then the door opens" deals. I had to use the emergency call phone to get people to come and get me out. I boarded the freight elevator on the 6th floor, intending to take some media down to the 2nd floor. I stopped dead with a jerk on the 5th floor. After pressing many buttons for a minute or so (this has fixed the elevator in other circumstances - sometimes you can just go to another floor and it will let you off) I realized that nothing was happening and this beast was stopped in its tracks.

Next I fiddled with the emergency phone thingy. It says 'Press button once. Call connected when red light is on'. I hit the button. The red light came on. I spoke to the wall "Hello?". No answer. Red light went out. Hmmm...is it still connected? I hit the button again. No red light. Again. No red light. Again again again. Hmmm...

I sat for a minute or so trying to stay calm, but I felt slightly nervous with the thought that no one would ever find me in there. I then noticed the red alarm bell. I hit this. It was SOOOO loud! I couldn't bear to hold it for that long, plus I figured no one would actually know what it meant in order to do anything about it (I know I wouldn't clue in if I heard it). I played with the phone again for awhile and eventually after asking "Is anyone out there" at a random time, someone answered and said "Hello?".

The elevator repairman and I then ascertained that I was stuck in elevator #146 on the 5th floor. They told me they were heading over immediately. Up to this point, only 5 minutes had passed, so I felt confident I would be out of there soon. I sat down and twiddled my thumbs and looked around and got pretty darn bored pretty quickly. At times, I could hear some thunking or other such noise, so it seemed someone was working to free me. I examined the ceiling - in movies, there are always hatches in the top of elevators through which you can escape. I had images of someone climbing in from the top and hauling me out. Alas, I never did see my heroes. After half an hour of sitting and thinking I would be in there all day, the elevator starting riding up and down the floors. Five minutes of this and the door opened on the 6th floor. I darted out as fast as I could. My adventure was over! I was proud of myself for staying calm and finding my way out.

I went to my lab to see if anyone had figured out where I went. No one had. In fact, they HAD heard the loud alarm bell, but didn't know what it was and dismissed it. "Is that the fire alarm?". Nope, that's the KIM ALARM! My timer for my experiment had gone off 26 minutes ago. My labmate Amanda said "Oh! That was YOURS! Next time your timer is 26 minutes over I will come looking for you." Which I appreciate. There really was no way anyone could know where I was. I think I will take the stairs instead of that elevator for the next little while.