Is my fear of elevators justified?

**The Gentleman Scamp** · 19-01-2008, 08:06 AM

I mean lifts - I said elevators so I didn't alienate our seppo community from the subject of this thread.

I wouldn't go as far as to call it a phobia, but my apartment block is about 20 years old and the lifts are breaking down a lot and are full of key scratch graffiti - however, everytime I get in one of them I am not comfortable.

I recall hearing stories of lifts that have plummeted and killed all inside, though I don't know for sure. It certainly happened in 9/11.

Is this paranoia justified? I know there's a counterweight thingy so if the main cable snapped would it simply sink down a couple of floors and then stop in between them and I'd just be stuck in it for a while, forcing the doors open a little, only to see a concrete wall and a gap at my feet?

Or could they snap and drop anytime?

I have always wondered what I would do if this were to happen, and I used to think as a child that if I jumped in the air the moment before it his the bottom I'd be ok because then I'd land and when I landed it would have been as if I'd just jumped up and down... The year after I did physics at school and realized I was thinking out of my arse.

On a lighter note, I have befriended a young cat who I sometimes meet in the lift. I don't know how he operates the buttons but he's often in there and comes up to my room sometimes for a saucer of water and some tuna if he's in luck, then I call the lift, stick him in it and send it back down to the ground floor - he knows what to do.

I have named him (aptly) Otis.

**November Rain** · 19-01-2008, 08:17 AM

I used to be terrified of lifts, Scampy. I don't think it was so much the plummetting thing as getting stuck in them, as I'm quite claustrophobic. I've been stuck in lifts a few times.

What got me out of my fear was pure laziness. I was doing private tutoring in HK & I usually went to the kids' homes. Sod's law, they nearly all lived above the 20th floor. When you have the choice between lugging loads of books up and down 20 flights of stairs 7 or 8 times a day or taking the lift, it's amazing how insignificant your fears become.

**The Gentleman Scamp** · 19-01-2008, 08:25 AM

Getting stuck in one wouldn't bother me unless I needed the toilet or was in a hurry to get somewhere. Got stuck in one in Hangzhou China which was packed full of friends and colleagues from the Carnival I was working on at the time.

I can understand how it could freak some people out but the acaries thing for me about being stuck in one is that I would be wondering how old the cable was and how long it would hold me.

**Spin** · 19-01-2008, 08:33 AM

I suppose the greatest fear is being stuck half way between floor and getting rescued by the fire dept and then having your head or legs cut off as the elevator started moving again.

Sorry if this doesnt help

**keda** · 19-01-2008, 10:05 AM

Cable (traction) elevators are less likely to fail than hydraulic elevators, which are raised and lowered by a giant piston, like those car jack thingies you see at service stations. The good news is the maximum practical height of hydraulic elevators is something like 6-8 floors, so even a fall from the top is unlikely to result in more than injury.

For cable/traction elevators, though there have been incidents, if the safeties fail the air beneath it acts as a cushion against the impact and is compressed as the box falls, mostly resulting in injury but not death. The greater the height of the fall the more air cushions the impact, so one trades off against the other.

In the unlikely event of finding yourself in a plummeting elevator, do not try to time a jump just before hitting bottom. This is simply not viable, because you will not know when the bottom is arriving and your timing needs to be a mere fraction of a second off for rescuers to find a crumpled heap. Also, you are likely to be thrown off balance during the fall anyway, and gravity will not permit you to jump whilst falling, and let's not forget once it does hit bottom the box is likely to collapse around you and crush you if you're in the middle of a jump, or even standing. Being upright will heighten the force of the impact through your skeleton causing massive internal injury, and my guess is after seeing the result you may feel more inclined to distribute the force.

To distribute the force of the impact, best is to lay face down in the center of the floor, legs together, cover your head for protection, and also try and give your face some protection against the impact. If you have something soft at your disposal, place it between your face and the floor, and mine's a lipo.

**mackayae** · 19-01-2008, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by keda

To distribute the force of the impact, best is to lay face down in the center of the floor, legs together, cover your head for protection, and also try and give your face some protection against the impact. If you have something soft at your disposal, place it between your face and the floor, and mine's a lipo.

The last time I did that, the other people in the elevator thought I was crazy.

**dirtydog** · 19-01-2008, 10:17 AM

Originally Posted by keda

If you have something soft at your disposal, place it between your face and the floor,

What? Like a friend or something like that?

I think most lift shafts at the bottom in the middle have a metal pole sticking up, so if the lift plummetted to the floor and you were standing in the middle, the metal pole would punch thru the lift floor, into and thru your groin and probably end up poking into your stomach, I should imagine this would be a tad painful.

**keda** · 19-01-2008, 10:32 AM

You misread...you're supposed to stand when it's not falling!

**November Rain** · 19-01-2008, 10:38 AM

Originally Posted by dirtydog

What? Like a friend or something like that?

You really are an evil bastard, aren't you, DD?

**nedwalk** · 19-01-2008, 11:05 AM

i got stuck once,just about to the next floor, was,nt too bad, it was one of them old buggers with a grate door, so we could see out and more importantley up,, was,nt too bad a view for a couple of hours

**Norton** · 19-01-2008, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by keda

To distribute the force of the impact, best is to lay face down in the center of the floor, legs together, cover your head for protection, and also try and give your face some protection against the impact. If you have something soft at your disposal, place it between your face and the floor, and mine's a lipo.

In this position seems a little difficult to bend over and kiss your ass goodbye! Although I reckon ones butt cheeks would constitute something soft between your face and the floor.

**Thormaturge** · 19-01-2008, 11:35 AM

I can understand a fear of lifts but it is when people (no nationalities mentioned you understand) canot use an escalator. Either they freeze and make several attempts to get on the thing or they stop to catch their breath the moment they get off regardless of the other people immediately behind them.

Lord knows what happens here is an escalator breaks down with people on it.

**stroller** · 19-01-2008, 11:55 AM

I thought an escalator was the opposite of a diplomat?

**Bluecat** · 19-01-2008, 12:00 PM

You should watch this 1983 movie "De Lift".

**Dalton** · 19-01-2008, 12:06 PM

Take the stairs mate

**Thormaturge** · 19-01-2008, 01:00 PM

Originally Posted by Dalton

Take the stairs mate

In the MRT you can't because they are roped off. I have been told it is to prevent terrorism but I just think it is because the Thais can't figure out how to switch them on, so they must be broken.

**Bluecat** · 19-01-2008, 01:06 PM

I doubt Scampy has stairs that can be switched on or off...

But as far as MRT escalators are concerned, I'm pretty sure that the fact that Bkk is "sinking" slowly but surely will make them stop for ever sooner or later.

**keda** · 19-01-2008, 12:49 PM

Scoff away but it happened in Cambodia about 4-5 years ago when they installed the first public escalator at a shopping center near Central Market in Pnom Penh...people came from all over the country to marvel at this new technology, but some were so fearful of actually testing it that they had to recruit a load of kids to hold visitors' hands and talk them through the entire 3-stage process...girls for men and vice versa.

Something I'm sure has been experienced by others...when you get on or off an escalator that's not moving, does your foot lurch slightly forward as though it is moving? I think it's something to do with psychological conditioning or expectations, even when you know it isn't moving.

**The Gentleman Scamp** · 19-01-2008, 09:10 PM

Originally Posted by keda

Scoff away but it happened in Cambodia about 4-5 years ago when they installed the first public escalator at a shopping center near Central Market in Pnom Penh...people came from all over the country to marvel at this new technology, but some were so fearful of actually testing it that they had to recruit a load of kids to hold visitors' hands and talk them through the entire 3-stage process...girls for men and vice versa.

He's right, for the most part if what I head is gospel - which is that 'guards' were employed to show people how to use it.

Something I'm sure has been experienced by others...when you get on or off an escalator that's not moving, does your foot lurch slightly forward as though it is moving? I think it's something to do with psychological conditioning or expectations, even when you know it isn't moving.

Yeah, weird isn't it-when stepping ON an immobile escalator, I almost trip over.

**Ping** · 19-01-2008, 05:38 PM

No problem with lifts, but escalators. Running late for the train home, half pissed, trying to run down the escalator and the inevitable cropper as a result. Often repeated because every time I was half pissed, I would think that I was less pissed than the previous time.

**chinthee** · 19-01-2008, 06:13 PM

I'll never forget the first time I went up to the top floor of the world trade center. Ears popping, and in the toilets, the water was swishing as the top of the building was swaying and you could feel it moving (it was designed that way).

Can't imagine the horror of actually being caught in 9/11 though. A bit off point, but very high lifts or elevators are a bit intimidating, especially glass ones with a view.

**yod4** · 19-01-2008, 06:13 PM

i have claustrophia and a mild fear of heights. elevators and bubble-glass elevators are definitely not my thing heh.

**keda** · 19-01-2008, 09:29 PM

It's a really odd feeling when your body takes off involuntarily...when stepping onto or off a stopped elevator I consciously try to avoid lurching forward, but still it happens

**forreachingme** · 19-01-2008, 10:44 PM

was living in the Sheraton in Baghdad around 1999, left the hotel few days before the elevator plunged with a couple of just married, i think she died and the guy had broken bones...Glass elevator, plunged due to lack of maintainance...

**keda** · 19-01-2008, 11:32 PM

Wondering if the death were contributed to if not caused by inefficient or incompetent rescue efforts, much as many Thai road and medical emergency deaths can be attributed to inadequate emergency response resources and training.

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