SDG IN DC #1: The Great Elevator Escape

SDG here (not Jimmy) with a follow-up to the SDG Mystery Photo post.

As many readers correctly guessed/stated, the picture shows the Greydanus family standing in the White House Rose Garden, on the West Wing side.

Some readers may remember my mentioning in a combox awhile back that Suz and I are sort of related to someone who works on the President’s staff. A few months back we took off for a week for a four-day trip to DC, and we got a super-cool White House tour that included the West Wing.

I hope to post something on the White House visit next week — though it wasn’t the best story to come out of our DC trip, and that’s what this post is about.

I think I can safely say that what our four older kids will probably most remember of our DC trip is our dramatic escape from a stalled elevator at the Smithsonian Institution Air & Space Museum, which involved an access panel in the roof of the elevator, two ladders, and a climb through the elevator shaft.

Here’s how it happened. (Note: Photos below the fold! Click to see larger version!)

We had just come out of the Cosmic Collision planetarium show on the second floor, and were on our way to the first floor to grab lunch when we made the fateful decision to take the elevator. Besides the seven of us, there were four other passengers in the elevator.

When the elevator lurched and came to a sudden stop, my initial thought was that it was simply a poorly calibrated landing… until the doors didn’t open.

Coincidentally, a gentleman on the opposite side of the elevator from me happened to be a museum employee. He fiddled with the elevator controls for a bit, and tried an elevator key presumably meant to bypass something or other. When nothing happened, he hit the alarm button a couple of times, sounding a buzzer outside the elevator.

Nothing continued to happen. Feeling that the buzzer sound was a rather unsatisfying last resort, I looked about on my side of the elevator and found an emergency phone. I picked it up, and, when someone answered, said pleasantly, “Hi, I’m calling from Elevator #2 — we’re stuck between floors.”

At this I was promptly transferred to someone else, and I repeated my message. Asked how many passengers there were, I replied, almost accurately, “About ten” — and at least two of the other passengers, neither Suz, helpfully added loudly, “Including small children!” You’d think I would have thought to mention that on my own.

A few minutes later we heard a dull banging sound. I banged back. A muffled voice asked, “Are you folks all right in there?” I doubt if the cacaphony of responses was intelligible on the other side, but it probably didn’t sound as if we had any immediate medical emergencies either. “We’re going to get you out of there!” the voice promised. “Stand back from the door!”

Of course we immediately retreated as far to the rear of the elevator as possible, vaguely imagining rescue workers on the other side setting up explosive devices against the doors and preparing to blast us to safety, or at least burly men working with a crowbar that might come prodding between the doors.


Waiting for the rescuers

Several minutes went by. Nothing happened.

Eventually we were asked again if we were all right, and made essentially the same response.

Presently, nine-year-old David, reasonably (and correctly) concluding that there was probably no immediate danger of any sudden violent change occurring in the vicinity of the door, felt that the time had come to take action.

A moment later, only briefly overlapping with the strenuous objections of his parents and the museum employee, he succeeded in prying apart the inner doors of the elevator, revealing a wide swath of inter-floor shaft wall lined with sheet rock or something. At our feet was maybe six inches of first-floor outer elevator doors. The outer doors were still closed.


The boys

It was starting to get warm, and the boys were in sweatshirts. David had on a T-shirt underneath but six-year-old Jamie didn’t. Still, we couldn’t keep him in the sweatshirt, so eventually they were both sitting on the floor of the elevator, David in his T and Jamie shirtless.

It was close quarters to change a baby, but at some point Suz had to do it. She also not only TMed her sister Lori in NJ regarding our plight, but sent her digital photos from her cellphone. So Lori in NJ had photos from inside the elevator in Washington, DC before the rescue workers even appeared.

I don’t remember when Jamie started to freak out, but he did. I sat down face to face with him and did my kid-whisperer shtick, basically trying to soothe and calm him by focusing his attention and trust on me. Eventually even David began to lose it and I had to kid-whisper him too, reminding him that I needed him to hold it together for his little brother’s sake, which, trooper that he is, he did.

In fairness to the boys, one of the teenagers was also freaking out a bit, nervously joking that she would never ride in another elevator again. This prompted some discussion about the statistical safety of elevators and how many people in large cities ride multiple elevators every day, etc. I did not offer any kid-whispering to the teenager.

Baby Nathan, or NuNu as he is wont to be called, was undoubtedly the least stressed individual in the whole affair.


Nathan Andrew

The tension level went down drastically when the firemen and maintenance people on the ground level succeeded in getting open the first-floor elevator doors, even though with only six inches of clearance no one was getting in or out that way. By that point it had gotten unpleasantly hot and stuffy, and the fresh air was, well, a breath of fresh air. Just to be able to see out of the elevator, too, made a huge emotional difference for the kids. They could see their (eventual) rescuers now, and the world was no longer confined to 200-odd cubic feet of space.

Still, apart from odd clanking sounds and such, nothing changed for awhile, until eventually the firemen and maintenance people announced that they weren’t going to be able to get the elevator moving, and that they would have to evacuate us through the roof of the elevator.


Light at the end of the tunnel

Needless to say, this revelation caused a bit of a stir. I don’t know if I’ve ever shown the kids a movie involving elevator shafts, but clearly it was the sort of thing that might be in a movie, and this turn of events officially qualified our ordeal as an adventure.

There remained a lot of standing around and waiting while the rescue workers opened the second-floor elevator doors, lowered a long extension ladder down to the elevator, and got firemen down onto the roof of the car. I’m sure there were other complications and implications to this operation that we weren’t aware of — securing the elevator to make sure it wouldn’t suddenly move or fall, or something.

Of course we could hear the workers walking around on the roof of the car for some time before the access panel came off. Then a face appeared in the opening and they explained that they were going to let down a ladder, but before we started to evacuate they wanted to insert a fireman into the elevator to assist the evacuation.


Sgt. Jim

The ladder that came down was a little aluminum thing only about eight inches wide. It was no wonder they were sending someone down to help us get up it.

Soon there were twelve of us in the elevator. The fireman was a sergeant, I think, and his name was Jim, which was sort of funny because Suz and I agreed that he looked a little like the young Sgt. James Gordon from Batman Begins / Year One, although we didn’t tell him this.

We spent some time discussing the order of evacuation. The family with kids was first, of course, and Suz pointed out that we needed a parent on the outside to take charge of the kids as they came out the shaft. The first priority was getting the baby out, and very luckily, because we’d been walking all over DC as well as through the museum, our paraphernalia included a baby-carrier backpack in which little Nathan had been riding for much of the day. (There was also a collapsible umbrella stroller which the firemen evacuated last.) Then of course there was Anna.

The best plan, we decided, was for me to carry the baby out on my back while spotting Anna up the first ladder. Suz would then see Sarah and the boys up and follow last. It occurred to me later that even though I had the baby, Suz probably should have gone first — though this would have been a mistake, as it turned out.


Anna, Papa and NuNu

The escape hatch was a bit of a tight fit, especially with the baby in the backpack. Further complicating matters, just beyond the hatch was a low I-beam of some sort that had to be crawled under.

Anna, right in front of me, was assisted by firemen on the roof of the car as she emerged from the hatch and under the I-beam and made her way to the front of the car, where a much bigger ladder ascended the shaft to the second-floor doors above.

With Nathan on my back, I had to really press myself against the ladder and duck as low as I could to avoid conking his head on the edge of the escape hatch behind me or the I-beam before I could stand upright.

Once I could stand, I saw that the shaft was quite a bit wider than the elevator — it would have been easy to step off the car and plunge to the bottom of the shaft. Not a safe place for a three-year-old without very careful adult supervision. Seeing that, I was glad that Suz was still down in the car and couldn’t see what was happening up there.

The upper ladder ascended steeply maybe 25 feet to the open second-floor doors — much too steep and too far for Anna, even with me right behind her. I couldn’t carry her with the baby on my back, so one of the firemen offered to carry her, and she calmly agreed. They also asked me if I was all right to carry the baby up the second ladder, which of course I was. So I went up right behind the fireman who was carrying Anna.


David makes the ascent

At the top of the shaft, other firemen helped us off the ladder and onto the second floor of the museum. Jamie came shortly afterwards, followed by David, Sarah and finally Suz, who, as I had guessed, was aghast at how dicey it had been, and couldn’t believe Annie had had had to get onto the elevator roof essentially by herself and crawl under the I‑beam and all, or that the boys had done the whole climb on their own.

Next the other passengers started to emerge, and then came our paraphernalia. It was about 45 minutes all told.

A museum employee met us as we came up and took down our names, perhaps documenting what had happened in the event of a lawsuit. We had just enough time to wait on a very, very long line to grab a hasty bite to eat before bolting to the museum’s other cinematic offering, To Fly, which FWIW had some pretty pictures but wasn’t nearly as interesting as Cosmic Collision.

I’m afraid I don’t have any larger political perspective on how it was all Bush’s fault, or how the liberals are ruining everything. (Man, am I going to hate myself for making that joke when the combox dissolves into political bickering… my least favorite subject in the world.)

It is true that in the elevator there had been some joking that the museum should offer us a free lunch, but the museum employee trapped with us correctly observed that this would not happen: “In the private sector you would, but this is the government.” He was right. We didn’t even get an apology.

30 thoughts on “SDG IN DC #1: The Great Elevator Escape”

  1. Exciting story! Had our family been in the same predicament, we’d probably have a few pictures to document as well. Glad everyone made it out okay!

  2. I went to the John Paul II Cultural Museum when I was in D.C. and at the time they had Michaelangelo’s model that he used while working on St. Peter’s Basilica.

  3. I can’t see the images. Is there a problem with the server right now? Other images are showing up fine on web pages.

  4. I was trapped in an elevator once, but I didn’t get to climb out the ceiling hatch. However, I was alone in the elevator and the emergency phone didn’t work. I could hear people talking and walking by the elevators on the floors above and below where I was stuck, though. I was amazed how many of them seemed to ignore my shouts for help. Eventually (after maybe 45 minutes) some maintenance guys came and got the outer doors open, and I was able to slither through a couple-foot-wide gap out onto the floor below me.
    So while I’m very glad I didn’t have any small children with me, I still wish I’d gotten to climb out the roof.

  5. @Victoria.
    As an ex-firefighter on a volunteer department I can assure you that a disabled person would have been easily rescued. Keep in mind that in most tragedies, the people being rescued are usually disabled by the tragedy (unconscious, broken limbs, paralyzed etc) and firefighters have many methods of rescuing the disabled. Rescuing able bodied people is actually unusual and can actually be more difficult.

  6. I actually almost died in an elevator once. I was taking the elevator at my workplace up to the third floor. As soon as I got in I could tell something was wrong. The elevator was stuck. So far, nothing too amiss. I called on my cell phone for help, and our building manager was going to try to get me out. Then, the elevator tried to move, and started jerking up and down. I also noticed smoke starting to come into the top of the elevator, and at that point I started to panic. However, I calmed myself down, and after offering up an act of contrition, I started to yell and scream for help. I was heard, but they still couldn’t get me out. Apparently, the hydraulic system had failed and started leaking, and this was burning against the motor and causing smoke. However, this failure also allowed me to pry the door open (the door had previously been stuck shut), and get out. I escaped into a locked basement room, which was also filled with smoke. However, after two to three minutes of my being in there, someone came and opened the door. I was taken to the local hospital, and everything checked out alright physically. So, I actually do avoid elevators like the plague, and despite statistical reasoning to the contary, am scared stiff of them.
    I found this article…http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article399715.ece with some more interesting info about elevators and safety.

  7. *swoons at the munchkins*
    Oh, and to shamelessly rip off a catch phrase…. “Sometimes a broken elevator is just a broken elevator.”

  8. Wow! All you needed was a pregnant woman in labor to make it like the movies. It’s amazing to me how many pregnant woman give birth in elevators according to Hollywood.
    I’m glad you are all safe. The kids are lovely. Nunu is darling; I just want to kiss those fat baby cheeks!

  9. Victoria — if anyone disabled had been there they would have had to wait until they could actually get the doors open – who knows how long THAT would have taken! It would have been really bad for them. Not only that, but anyone too old or too fat to climb the ladder would have been in trouble too. The only reason we able-bodied folks were in the elevator is because the Air and Space Museum is a long rectangle, and the stairs are located at the far ends. The elevator is in the middle. The kids’ feet were sore from all the walking, and we didn’t feel like going way out of our way just to get downstairs. If there had been stairs in the middle, we would not have gotten on the elevator. Jamie (age 6) is still scared of elevators now.

  10. “I’m afraid I don’t have any larger political perspective on how it was all Bush’s fault, or how the liberals are ruining everything.”
    So now we know why Karl Rove resigned! ElevatorGate!! When do the congressional hearings start? When will the subpoenas be issued? How come this hasn’t shown up on MoveOn.org?
    he he 🙂
    Thanks to God you made it out okay.

  11. Interesting adventure but nothing compared to what the people experienced when they were stuck in the Gateway Arch’s tram when it failed.

  12. Reminds me of a story a friend of mine experienced when we were in college. He never took the elevator, but one day he felt tired and didn’t want to walk up the stairs. When he was in the elevator happened to be the time that the whole city lost power for a couple of hours. There was no much he could do but wait 🙂

  13. We had just enough time to wait on a very, very long line to grab a hasty bite to eat before bolting to the museum’s other cinematic offering, To Fly, which FWIW had some pretty pictures but wasn’t nearly as interesting as Cosmic Collision.
    AHA! They’re still playing that hoary old chestnut. We went and saw it in 1994 when in Washington DC for my aunt’s final vows as a Missionary of Charity, and were singularly unimpressed. But maybe it takes on a nostalgic flavour as it’s been there year after year after years.
    About the escape, I was thinking how really weird it was to read such a story with photos. Not so long ago, one’s vacation mishaps were left as anecdotes to be imagined, and now you were sharing the photos with relatives before the incident was already over!

  14. SDG,
    I’m sorry, but you remind me of Pocahontas with the baby carrier in the second-to-last photo!

  15. Eileen R–
    I remember seeing it (many times) from as early as 1986!! It’s an old one, for sure. The best part of the film, as I recall is the very beginning when you are looking out of the baloon to the earth below and then it opens up into a chasm (or was it over a cliff?).
    Great story, SDG. Glad the family is all fine. Loved the photos–the kidlings are gorgeous!

  16. The only time I was stuck in an elevator was at my church, after having been in hospital for surgery.(I ordinarily avoid elevators, because…well….because they can get stuck….
    Anyhow, I hit the alarm button….I am told that the entire building was at once aware that Someone Was Stuck In the Elevator, because we have a VERY loud alarm.
    Someone finally came & let me out….I was less than a foot from the floor. The appropriate committee is, I am told, including in the plans for the replacement elevator, some kind of an over-ride, to prevent this kind of thing, I.E., being stuck at a point where anyone could step out (or be rolled/lifted, if disabled).
    I have returned to my previous belief that elevators are to be avoided. (Yes, between avoiding elevators, airplanes, & several other Terrifying Technologies, I do live a fairly quiet life).

  17. My elder brother works at the planetarium. I’ll have to call and interrogate him! 🙂 Usually all the museum has to do is rescue people from getting their shoelaces eaten by the escalator.

  18. When I was in college, the undergrad dorms were 10- and 12-story buildings with notoriously old and shaky elevators. There was a rumor that if you got stuck in them, the university would pay you $10/hour for the time you were stuck. There were many days I used to hope I’d get stuck in the elevator, but alas, no dice. 🙂
    Glad your adventure ended safely!

  19. “When I was in college, the undergrad dorms were 10- and 12-story buildings with notoriously old and shaky elevators. There was a rumor that if you got stuck in them, the university would pay you $10/hour for the time you were stuck. There were many days I used to hope I’d get stuck in the elevator, but alas, no dice. :)”
    Having put on the freshman 15 when I was in college, the stairs to my dorm room on the fourth floor became my excercise habit.
    It never occured to me getting trapped in the elevator could have been my key to extra income.

  20. Arrrg, shiver me timbers. At least ye weren’t stuck on International Talk like a Pirate day.
    (Does this mean I have to say my prayers in Latin?)

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