Who answers the phone if you get stuck in a lift?!

[Voilly]

The highlight of my day so far has been thinking the lift at work had broken down (with me in it), and thinking that I would possibly need rescuing. Fortunately/unfortunately it started again with no intervention and no dramatic rescue needed.

But then I wondered who answers the emergency telephone in a lift anyway? I have vague ideas of someone in a control room at the top or bottom of the lift shaft monitoring it's progress, but even I know that can't be the case! So - who does answer it?!

I think it goes to the company who installed the lifts. There’s usually a contact number for them on the panel too.

The building owner will pay a maintenance fee to some contact centre in charge of elevator maintenance. So, when you call from your stuck lift in London (as an example), it may call a contact centre in the Midlands. They will ask you for the lift location or reference (there's often a sticker near the call button with some numbers etc on it). That's how they locate that lift. Then they will call the closest repair service to you to rectify the issue. If its an emergent situation, they will advise you to call the Fire Brigade.

That's my understanding of it, anyway. Not as exciting as your suggestion, OP

Presumably somebody in a basement at the Otis or Thyssen head office, who then communicates the details of your plight to whatever number they have on record for the building - or the emergency services if necessary.

Must be a tedious job, though For one thing, you'd have to bite your lip every time to avoid saying "Help is on its way - don't go anywhere" !

I imagine it’s some kind of call centre. I got stuck in a lift once.. it was very boring.

DF used to work for a company and one of her jobs was a weekly call from the lift to check the phone thingy worked, which is reassuring.

Just hope that you can make yourself understood to whomever is manning the phone....

DS and DH once got stuck in a lift at a Uni halls of residence during an open day. They pressed the emergency button and no one responded. Fortunately they were only a few inches below the floor and eventually managed to force the doors open and step up and out. There were 8 of them in a small lift and DH, who is usually quite calm, felt faint and panicked. Needless to say that Uni went to the bottom of DS's choice of Unis

I used to answer lift phones while working for a careline - like, those alarms for people they press when they had a fall.

We would call the sites nominated representative, or the lift company, or the fire brigade, depending on the contract.

Lift phones were a bit unpredictable to answer as often they were prank or accidental but we had to send someone to check anyway if we couldn't hear anyone in the lift which didn't make us very popular!

Thank you for all your answers! No chance of being rescued by the SAS then? :)

Otis, obvs.

I’m very claustrophobic and getting stuck in a lift is my worst nightmare. I remember the wee sign said ‘...if call is not answered, please re-disk...’ Erm is there a reason it wouldn’t be answered?

[quote WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]Just hope that you can make yourself understood to whomever is manning the phone....

[/quote] Just watched this at my desk trying not to giggle!

My OH was a lift engineer, he frequently went on stuck lift call outs

They don't always call the Fire Service, sometimes you have to wait for an engineer who could be miles away

No one! At least, not when I was stuck in the lift at the railway station last year.

Oh I thought you were asking who you’d call if you were stuck in a lift. Your question makes way more sense!!

When we got stuck, it went through a lift management company who didn't actually look after that lift anymore, but they hadn't updated the sign inside. They called the actual lift management company, who said it'd be a 3 to 5 hour wait. Luckily they also called the NCP car park attendant the lift was at (5 Ways in Birmingham, if you want to avoid these lifts!) to let him know to put out of order signs up, he used his initiative and rescued us by hand cranking the lift down to ground level.

This is why I always go for a wee if I can before getting in a lift.
I once watched a documentary that explained that you can’t suffocate in a lift which made me feel so much better

Some maintenance company. Just don't get stuck in one at 4am wearing a fancy dress costume.