I’ll remember to follow warning notices after what happened in my apartment lift..

One day after coming back from work, I saw a notice from my apartment management office regarding a power disruption. The power disruption is supposed to be between 10:30am until 3:30pm on 14th August 2008.

Power supply distruption notice

On 14th August 2008, I was on half-day to work as I was not feeling well. So I got ready and left my apartment around 11:30am and I totally did not remember that it was the very same day where the power disruption was planned.

I went into the lift and pressed the button to ground floor. The lift started moving and I saw the notice stuck inside the lift. The moment I saw the power disruption time, I turned and even before i could press the button to open the lift door.. THE POWER WENT OFF!! I was stuck in a dark lift with the air ventilation fan off. Then I remembered that the lift should have a laminated paper with emergency contacts. I took my mobile phone and using the phone screen light I searched for the emergency contacts. And thanks to some idiots who like to vandalise or remove public things, the emergency contact notice was not there!

In a lift without power supply, I don’t have fresh air, no light, alarm button doesn’t work, no mobile phone coverage, I got so irritated and tried to force open the door. That is when the power came back and I pressed the door open button and the lift opened at 4th floor. I didn’t want to take the risk, so I used the staircase and left to work.

And guess how long the whole event took place? It was within a minute. I’m glad it did not last longer than that. The power could have easily been turned off until the planned time of 3:30pm, that means I could have been stuck in the lift for 4 hours!

When I came back from work, the same lift which I got stuck in the morning was closed and down for repair or maintenance. Luckily the other lift was still working.

One lift under repair

After that incident, I started paying attention to all the notices from my apartment management. And I realise that paying attention to all warning notices can save a lot of trouble.