The elevator

The kids were excited that our short-term housing was an apartment in a building with an elevator. They would prefer it if the building also had a pool, but the elevator was good enough. We were on the 2nd floor so there was not much need for an elevator; I prefer to take the single flight of stairs instead.

Talyn loved the elevator; it had buttons and it was in the building. He would often run ahead and take the elevator by himself.

One day I received the panic call at 4:00 that Talyn was stuck in the elevator. I was at work and all I heard was pandemonium emanating from my cell phone. Deanna and the kids were about to pick me up from work. Talyn ran out of the apartment and got into one elevator and took it down by himself. Nyssa, and Dante took the elevator while Deanna took the stairs. When Deanna reached the bottom first as the stairs are faster than the elevator, she saw Nyssa and Dante arrive at the bottom floor, but stood there waiting for the Talyn's elevator to open.

Talyn's elevator door never opened. The elevator got stuck and remained at the ground floor. Talyn began to panic while Deanna tried to calm him down. Talyn manually opened the doors a little bit a which point Deanna saw that the elevator was not flush with the floor. So Deanna told him to not push anything and too release the doors. She thought that if he released the doors the elevator would settle and the elevator door would open. After a couple of minutes, the doors did not open and the elevator light went out. Now Talyn was stuck in the elevator in the dark.







Talyn at the scene of the incident








That is when Deanna decided to call me.

I picked up the phone and Deanna was....concerned. Well actually she was close to a full on panic. In the background, I heard Talyn wailing. Nyssa and Dante were crying as well. Deanna did not know who to call. I decided to call the caretaker, but I did not know his number. Luckily his number is posted in the lobby. Deanna gave me the number and I went to talk to my colleague. You see the caretaker only speaks Arabic so I could not speak to him directly. My colleague did and told the caretaker what was going on. My colleague hung up and told me that the caretaker was on his way.

Meanwhile, Dante ran to the 2nd floor to call the elevator. The elevator started to move. The display said that the elevator went to the 10th floor. As the elevator rose, Talyn's cries became softer and softer. Then they became louder again as the elevator returned. When it reached the ground, it still did not open. Deanna then told him to open the inner doors manually. When he did that the outer doors released somewhat and Deanna was able to open the door with her hand.

Talyn is glad to be out of that elevator.







Later, the caretaker arrived and checked the elevator. The elevator seemed to work fine after that. The reason that Talyn was in the dark is that whenever there is no activity in the elevator for a minute or two, the light turns off in order to save electricity.

Deanna and I had the kids take the stairs for the next couple of days. There was no arguments after what happened. It has now been a week since it happened and the kids do not take the elevator very often.

Now he takes the stairs instead.