Imagine getting stuck in the elevator of the Willis Tower. Now, imagine being stuck in the Willis Tower elevator after midnight between the 75th and 80th floors.
This actually happened to a group of around 15 people on the night of April 17, according to a report from DNAinfo Chicago. The report tells the story of Uptown resident Sylwia Borowska who, along with about 14 other late-night concertgoers, was trapped for a little more an hour in an elevator.
After a concert on the Skydeck, the group packed shoulder-to-shoulder into an elevator only to have it get jammed during its descent. The elevator then proceeded to suddenly drop about an inch every few seconds, Borowska told DNAinfo. The trapped individuals tracked their descent by sticking chewing gum on the wooden elevator shaft walls when the doors opened.
Thankfully, the fans were rescued, but apparently were asked to still travel to the ground floor using a separate elevator bank.
The Willis Tower did not offer comment to DNAinfo.
According to a blog post by an elevator industry firm, "...you are probably safer trapped in an elevator—barring the lack of food and water—than walking outside on the street." A 2006 industry study on elevator-related passenger deaths from 1992-2003 estimates the average yearly death toll from such incidents to be only six. Despite this truly awful incident, there doesn't seem to be any reason to cancel your plans, and there doesn't appear to have been any similar issues since this one.
See you at the top!
Photograph: Courtesy CC/Wikimedia Commons/Jaro Nemčok