For lots of people, the idea of getting stuck in an elevator is a huge fear, which is no surprise from a number of scary movie scenes from being stuck in elevators there have been over the years. The idea that you can’t reach anyone, you’re stuck in a small metal space and you could fall down from multiple floors is undeniably super scary. However, this was the outcome for one unfortunate woman.
A Chinese woman was found after an entire month of being trapped in an elevator because a maintenance worked had shut down the energy and power supply without doing the routine and very necessary checks that no one was in the building anymore. The woman died of thirst after not being found for so long, which must have felt like an eternity for her. In January was when the power was officially closed, in the Northern city of Xi’an and apparently shouted out to see if anyone was present but no one responded which is why they went ahead and closed the building and shut the power down. The woman who was stuck in the elevator was trapped between the 10th and the 11th floors in the building, whilst the workers celebrated their New Year annual leave only to come back to a truely horrific scene.
When the men did return they saw the desperate attempt the woman had tried to escape the lift, with the walls covered in scratch marks and her body then still and lifeless. Official reports say that the death of the poor innocent woman was due to fatal error by not opening the elevator carriage to check and not thoroughly checking the building before turning all the power off. Moreover, the reason no one went looking for the woman was because she lived alone, so could go days without seeing another person and not raising any alarm. She was 43 and healthy when she was trapped.
The police have treated this case as involuntary manslaughter and as a result a handful of people involved have been arrested. The body of the woman showed no signs of trauma, so manslaughter has been ruled out in this case, but the fear, pain and loneliness this woman would of suffered after being trapped for a month in unimaginable!
