news from the front

[rm]

So, I was just in an elevator at the office with a few other people and there was a noise like a frigging gunshot and then the elevator sort of jerked a bit. Which, you know was unpleasant enough without the following exchange, between the other two people in the elevator.

1: Look's like this one is going to go too.
2: This building's elevators are terrible.
1: You know why the middle one is out, right?
2: No....?
1: The cable snapped.
2: Was there anyone in it?
1: Of course! I heard it was up on ten when it happened.
2: I hope she had shins of foam.
1: Well, she does now.

Comments

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Gratuitous icon comment.

[sevendayloan.livejournal.com]

Ditto'd.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

2: I hope she had shins of foam.
1: Well, she does now.

...What?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was all a bit... .O.o

Like, I know what they meant, but ... yeah.

[eac.livejournal.com]

You know, I think I might try to spare onlookers that information in a case like this.

[sethg]

This is my opportunity to plug The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead’s magic realist novel about a black female elevator inspector in something very much like NYC of the late 1940s.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

For what (little) comfort this might provide, when an elevator cable breaks the elevator's brake automatically engages. So the elevator car just stops wherever it is instead of falling. This still results in people having to be gotten out of the elevator car by emergency crews, but nobody plunges to their death.

[usullusa.livejournal.com]

I had something similar happen to me a few months ago. The elevator dropped a few feet and then vibrated for a while before continuing on its way.
I live on the 14th floor and spent the next week taking the stairs.

[jendaby.livejournal.com]

Weird. And why did they assume the person in the elevator was female? That is so random.

I once got stuck on an elevator in DC going up to an observation deck. There was a girls basketball team on the elevator with us, and half of them were laughing about how we were all going to plummet to the ground and needed to jump when we hit. One girl started hyper-ventilating, and they thought this was funny, so they got worse. We were stuck in there for 45 minutes, and they were calling an ambulance for the panicked girl. I guess some people say weird things to try and "lighten the mood" when they are afraid, but elevator "humor" usually is in poor taste. :p

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Well. That's...comforting.

[firefly124.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Nice folks to be riding with. Glad you seem to have come out of it all right.

[gina-r-snape.livejournal.com]

Hey, actual useful information. So it's not just like in the movies.

Also? OOOF. The things that come out of people's mouths sometimes.

[ldybastet.livejournal.com]

:( :( :( Helpful of them to share...

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

a) See icon;

b) my first though on seeing the title of your post was that great Grouchoism from "Duck Soup", "Why can't we get news from the side?"

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

That is some comfort. I've been in some dodgy elevators and it always freaks me out.

[popfiend.livejournal.com]

Why would anyone do that?

Sometimes I swear people act like they've had too many cranial traumas in their life.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

Because MEN would WALK! /sarcasm

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

Because in the movies, it's always a girl, and girls draw more viewers...?

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I was going to post this myself. I used to have mortal fear of the elevators in the office I used to work in , in NYC. In order to combat it , I just did all the research.

The original patent drawings for the elevator emergency brake are kinda interesting.