I need to say that the comradarie and coolness of all who were trapped with me in the elevator was fantastic!!

I hate to think what it would have been like if we had 15 of the daily employees (not CAL) of Smith Street in that elevator.

When it started to get a little too hot and humid (after about 10 minutes), I was able to slide both sides of the inner door open to start an acceptable breeze. Every time another elevator went by we got a cool blast.

We were dead center between 15 and 16 and although there appeared to be an accessible release for the hallway door, we decided not to try to open it.

We were told that water would be available when we got out but when the elevator moved up and the door finally opened on the 16th floor, the hallway was empty. They were waiting on the 15th. About 3 minutes later another elevator opened and we had our water from Chelsea.

We were later told that the problem was not with possibly an overload (elevator was rated at 3500 pounds plus undoubtedly a safety factor of probably 20%) but that a tilt switch was tripped when too many people were near the front door. A really dumb situation compounded by the fact that there was no elevator number posted in the elevator to tell security

I will say that if this ever happens to you, and you are not with a bunch of cool headed FTers, you insist that the outside person call the fire department to bring a hydraulic "JAWS" system in addition to calling the elevator company. Then if anyone panics, the fire department can easily open both the inner and outer doors in a few minutes if the elevator company is delayed as this one was for an hour..

smokey - REMT 36 years