Hey.
What was that jolt?
Oh no.
The elevator is stuck.
You scream for help,
but nobody answers.
What should you do?
Can you escape?
Focus.
You can handle this.
Elevators are an essential part
of buildings and cities.
There are about 900,000
of them in the U.S.
and over 15.3 million worldwide.
Otis, one of the biggest
elevator companies in the U.S.,
claims to carry the equivalent
of the world's population every five days.
That’s like lifting all humans
on the planet 73 times a year.
Yeah,
elevators are essential in tall buildings.
But they can be dangerous too.
In 2005, 37 people died
in elevator-related accidents
in the U.S. alone.
So, here's what you need to know
before stepping into that lift.
Yeah,
Hollywood loves that little hatch
in the elevator ceiling.
But in real life,
it only opens from outside
for rescue workers.
Don’t waste your time and energy
trying to escape through it.
The safest place to wait for help
is inside the car.
If hours have passed,
and you haven’t been able to notify
anyone of the emergency,
try to pry open the doors.
Even a tiny gap can help you
find out where you are.
And if you can see a source of light,
you may be near a floor.
Try screaming for help
until somebody responds to you.
Being trapped in a small metal box
suspended hundreds of meters
above the ground
could trigger your anxiety
and even cause you
to have a panic attack.
But chill out.
The British National Health Service
suggests that you breathe slowly
and focus on something visible
and non-threatening,
like time passing on a clock,
or remembering familiar things,
like items in a supermarket.
A common fear is running out of air.
But elevators are not sealed,
so you won’t suffocate.
And since there are so many elevators,
incidents are not rare.
In 2010,
a survey conducted by IBM
found that in 12 months,
office workers in 16 major U.S. cities
spent a total of 33 years
stuck inside elevators.
The emergency buttons in newer elevators
connect to monitored hotlines,
so operators can send technicians
or send the emergency services
when an elevator malfunctions.
"Hello?"
If someone answers,
make sure you know how to ask for help
in the local language.
"Yeah. I'm stuck in the elevator."
Unfortunately, Ming Kuang Chen
didn’t know how to do that.
In 2005,
the Chinese restaurant worker
got trapped in an elevator
while delivering an order
in a New York City apartment building.
Ming was trapped in the elevator,
and he called for help on the intercom.
But he didn’t speak English,
so the operators couldn’t understand him,
and decided not to do anything.
When he didn't return to work,
his co-workers were worried.
The police visited almost 900 apartments
as they tried to find him.
Ming was rescued after being trapped
in the elevator for 81 hours.
If there’s no fire or earthquake,
it’s unlikely that the elevator car would fall.
There’s only one reported case
of an elevator car falling
when there wasn’t a fire
or a collapsing building.
In 1945,
a U.S. Army plane crashed into
the Empire State Building in Manhattan,
slicing through the cables holding the elevator
where Betty Lou Oliver worked
as an operator.
The cab fell from the 75th floor.
But, miraculously,
she survived
because the fallen cables
softened the fall.
So, just relax and hang out
until help arrives.
Without a doubt,
the best way to avoid being
trapped in an elevator
is careful, regular maintenance.
A woman in the Chinese city of Xi’an
found that out in 2016.
She was trapped in her
apartment building’s elevator
after maintenance workers decided
there was no one inside it
and took the elevator out of service.
Then, they went on holiday for a month
to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
When they finally returned,
they found the woman’s dead body
in the elevator.
Her hands were mangled
from trying to open the doors.
One of the workers was arrested
for negligent homicide.
So, never skip maintenance.
Phew.
Finally, the emergency workers
are here to help.
But suddenly,
the walls start cracking.
The ceiling is falling into pieces.
The building is collapsing.
Hey, don’t worry.