So last night, while sitting at home, I heard a loud buzzing sound out in the hallway of my condo building. Turns out the elevator was stuck with someone inside, and she was hitting the alarm button and calling for help.
Concerned for her safety and happy for the opportunity to play hero, I called 911 for rescue service and set about trying to get her out while waiting for them to arrive (if there is an after hours maintenance number for our community, it’s not well advertised).
I had hoped that there would be some kind of safety mechanism that would let me open the doors even when the elevator wasn’t responding - maybe a spring activated feature that would release when I put enough pressure on them or something. But no, these things were hard steel and not designed for emergency escapes.
I could only force the doors open an inch or so, and only at the bottom. But then I remembered a trick an old friend of mine and I discovered while rock climbing and pushing boulders downhill in Arizona - laying on the ground and propping yourself up against something gives your legs an incredible amount of leverage.
So I wedged myself against the wall and stuck my toes between the doors and gave a good hard shove, feeling great satisfaction as the door went *crunch* and locked into place at a respectable angle. I repeated this for the other side and the inner doors, and the poor girl who was stuck inside was able to get out through the opening.
I called to cancel the rescue request, but they showed up anyway. I was still feeling a bit like a superhero when the tall blonde square-jawed firefighter came in, looked at the elevator and asked “Who did that?”
I said, “I did.”
He looked at me, looked back at the elevator, and inquired, “With WHAT?!”
