How to escape from an elevator?

[RainDreamer]

There is news recently about a woman in China who got stuck in an elevator and eventually die when left inside for a month, and you can look up more information about it. I just wonder if for some reason or another someone got in that situation again, what can they actually do, when conventional method such as alarm/emergency phone in the elevator is down?

Also, we can probably skip the "just take the stairs" comment.

[Tex_NL]

Many elevators have escape hatches, usually in the ceiling. However most can only be opened from the outside by rescue personnel.
Even if you manage to open such a hatch it is still extremely dangerous to try and escape that way. You'll be in an exposed elevator shaft without any guarantee of a nearby exit. Climbing up or down may result in a faster than planned descent.

[Pixel of Life]

Shout and bang on the walls until someone hears you and gets help? If the elevator is a model where the elevator car itself doesn't have a front wall/door (the doors are static and mounted on the wall of the elevator shaft), you can probably stick something through the gap between the door and the doorframe and wave it around to get people's attention, or write something on it push it all the way through so it falls on the floor where someone will see it. Or try to trip a smoke alarm with cigarettes or a burning piece of paper or something.

How the hell does one get stuck in an elevator for a month anyway? Someone's going to notice it's not working and contact maintenance. A maintenance team might not arrive for a while but any professional elevator company would send someone to check the situation asap to make sure nobody's in the elevator. It's highly unlikely you'd be stuck in there for more than half a day.

[Tex_NL]

1 minute ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

How the hell does one get stuck in an elevator for a month anyway? Someone's going to notice it's not working and contact maintenance. A maintenance team might not arrive for a while but any professional elevator company would send someone to check the situation asap to make sure nobody's in the elevator. It's highly unlikely you'd be stuck in there for more than half a day.

In this Chinese case it was the maintenance team that shut down the elevator. Unfortunately for the lady they 'forgot' to check if the elevator cars where empty.

[p1t1o]

I would have thought that elevators and their associated equipment would have copious fire-detection stuff , although its easily possible you could be stuff without the means to do this. Its not like you can go hunting for dry sticks.

Also, did they seal off the whole building? I would have thought the smell after a coupla days would attract a fair amount of attention...

Quick read suggests the other residents were still present, it is as yet unknown why she was unable to attract anyone's attention.

 

On another note, there is a youtube video out there (cant browse for it right now) of 12 hours or so of CCTV footage of a guy who was trapped overnight in a lift. It is montaged to a nice musical score and the whole thing squeezed into about 3 minutes or so, its quite poignant actually, you can see the different emotions he goes through.

[Kerbart]

Large buildings can have shafts with no doors for the first, say, 10 floors. I'm conjecturing of course, but if the elevator was left halfway such a section it would explain why the service crew did not visually check the elevator (which they should have done by bringing it to their floor, horrible neglect!), why nobody heard the woman call for help and possibly why nobody smelled anything (environmental issues too, maybe the building smelled bad by itself). It also prevented the woman from getting out— if she pried the doors open she'd be facing a wall (which you can break through if it's sheetrock, but you'd have to know that. And if it's solid concrete you can't)

[p1t1o]

Apparently she was stuck between floor 10 and 11. Surprised its not routine to leave elevator cars open at ground level during all downtime. But then lax regulation has been bandied around alot around the articles.

[Elthy]

I would avoid entering an elevator in china or other places with less than ideal maintainace/security requirements.

[RainDreamer]

I wonder if we can design an elevator type that allow passenger to safely escape in worst case scenarios like this...

[Starwaster]

Get trapped with a wide variety of people from various age groups who slowly get picked off one by one while they frantically try to find out who the killer is?

[p1t1o]

20 minutes ago, Starwaster said:

Get trapped with a wide variety of people from various age groups who slowly get picked off one by one while they frantically try to find out who the killer is?

I thought that was going to be something about genetic diversity in order that some of your descendants survive to see the outside world.

[RainDreamer]

Wait what? How did we get from elevator to mysteries to genetic selection?

[Starwaster]

3 minutes ago, RainDreamer said:

Wait what? How did we get from elevator to mysteries to genetic selection?

Mysterious the ways of the Elevator are....

[GluttonyReaper]

And people wonder why I prefer stairs.

[Pixel of Life]

5 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

I wonder if we can design an elevator type that allow passenger to safely escape in worst case scenarios like this...

A normal elevator but with a hydraulic braking system (it should obviously have a traditional braking system as a backup). Attach the cables to the end of a piston moving inside a long, fluid filled cylinder. The piston would have holes in it so it can still move but the fluid creates a lot of resistance. Spring loaded bypass valves would be open during normal operation to allow the fluid to easily move from one side of the cylinder to the other but would automatically close in case of a malfunction, thus activating the braking system and safely lowering the elevator to the bottom floor. It's 100% gravity and spring powered so it will never get stuck between floors unless something's physically preventing the elevator from moving. The doors (both inner and outer doors) should have a lever that  disconnect them from the motor mechanism or open a bypass valve in the pneumatic/hydraulic system so that they can be opened manually once the elevator has reached the bottom floor.

[Tex_NL]

27 minutes ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

A normal elevator but with a hydraulic braking system (it should obviously have a traditional braking system as a backup). Attach the cables to the end of a piston moving inside a long, fluid filled cylinder. The piston would have holes in it so it can still move but the fluid creates a lot of resistance. Spring loaded bypass valves would be open during normal operation to allow the fluid to easily move from one side of the cylinder to the other but would automatically close in case of a malfunction, thus activating the braking system and safely lowering the elevator to the bottom floor. It's 100% gravity and spring powered so it will never get stuck between floors unless something's physically preventing the elevator from moving. The doors (both inner and outer doors) should have a lever that  disconnect them from the motor mechanism or open a bypass valve in the pneumatic/hydraulic system so that they can be opened manually once the elevator has reached the bottom floor.

A hydraulic braking system can fail causing the stricken elevator to fall. A better option would be to use eddy current brakes. No liquids, no brake pads, nothing that can fail. As soon as the power or the tension on the lifting cable is lost the magnets should 'grab' the rails and the elevator will be gently lowered to the ground.

[Triop]

-weggejorist-

Edited March 9, 2016 by Triop

[Guest]

On 3/8/2016 at 11:38 AM, Elthy said:

I would avoid entering an elevator in china or other places with less than ideal maintainace/security requirements.

Heck, I'd avoid going even near China.

It's way too dangerous there, they don't give a fluff about human rights.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Guest

[cantab]

On 08/03/2016 at 8:54 PM, Tex_NL said:

A hydraulic braking system can fail causing the stricken elevator to fall. A better option would be to use eddy current brakes. No liquids, no brake pads, nothing that can fail. As soon as the power or the tension on the lifting cable is lost the magnets should 'grab' the rails and the elevator will be gently lowered to the ground.

Eddy current brakes could certainly fail. The magnets could become demagnetised or outright fall out of their positions. The rails could corrode, changing their conductivity and their separation from the magnets and impairing their braking effect, or their supports could weaken and be unable to take the weight of the elevator. Because such a system will cause power losses in normal operation, an unscrupulous building operator will be tempted to deliberately disable it. There are doubtless other things I haven't thought of.

It's probably more reliable than a hydraulic system, but anything can fail.

[Stargate525]

If you're in the US or any European country, you should be able to force the doors. That hole in the door is for a leverage device to do so.

Protip, though: if the spot for the inspector's certificate is blank, or says 'on file in maintenance office' or something, don't take it. It's never been inspected.

[HoloYolo]

Isn't there a button that calls the fire department to rescue you if such elevator gets stuck?

[Pixel of Life]

6 minutes ago, HoloYolo said:

Isn't there a button that calls the fire department to rescue you if such elevator gets stuck?

 

On 3/7/2016 at 9:46 PM, RainDreamer said:

when conventional method such as alarm/emergency phone in the elevator is down

 

[HoloYolo]

41 minutes ago, CaptainKorhonen said:

 

 

LOL

[Dman979]

IIRC, Phones don't quite work in elevators, because there's a box effect which keeps radio waves from traveling. I think, I'm not sure- I read it somewhere.

[HoloYolo]

50 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

IIRC, Phones don't quite work in elevators, because there's a box effect which keeps radio waves from traveling. I think, I'm not sure- I read it somewhere.

It's a button that automatically calls the fire department. It's not a literal phone.