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Comment by sarreph | Hacker News Reader

What are you supposed to do if you get stuck in a lift and you don't have your laptop (or zero cell signal for example)?

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In the US at least, the button actually has to connect you to monitoring staff. It can be the building staff if they have 24/7 support but it usually goes to an outside monitoring company. It also has to be in a highly accessible location which is why it’s at the bottom of the panel generally. The US is kind of a stickler for accessibility and safety in building codes, despite the country’s reputation.

This is an older post from the UK so I don’t know if the button was required to be connected and something was wrong or if they really can leave it as a simple alarm like that.

I, personally, would take the opportunity to have an undisturbed nap. The thought of having no notifications and a great excuse for why I wasn’t answering sounds lovely today.

When I was homeless and living on the streets, if it was rainy or cold I would take shelter in an elevator.

This elevator was accessible from outside and nearly nobody used it, especially not at night when the shops were all closed. I did not use the Emergency Stop button.

It was not comfortable, but I could nap. I would put it on the 2nd floor, and when the housekeeping team arrived, the elevator would begin moving to the first floor and I had enough time to wake up, stand, and stroll out as the doors opened.

I can't see the lift obviously but in the movies they punch out the ceiling and climb out

In real life, there is no maintenance hatch to punch out , because the elevator manufacturer doesn’t want to be liable for people falling down an elevator shaft or being crushed.

In real life, the elevator starts working again and kills you.

If you somehow manage to get on top of the elevator cab (indeed as the sibling comment points out, there is no escape hatch at the top), you will generally see a small control panel with a switch to put it in inspection mode. That turns off autonomous control and from there the cab will stay where it is unless you manually action the up/down switches (assuming the "safety chain" isn't broken - which if the elevator suddenly stops, it may be - so even those won't do anything then).

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