Wishing for the Stairs : Runaway Office Elevator Ruins Poway Cleaning Woman’s Day

What goes up, must come down. And up. And down. And up. And down.

So it went Sunday for the cleaning lady at the Boulder Medical Building on Monte Vista Road in Poway.

The unlucky woman, who was not identified, was trapped for almost 45 minutes in an indecisive elevator that bounded ceaselessly from the basement to the first floor and back down again, driving its lone occupant nearly hysterical.

In the end, 14 firefighters swarmed the scene. After cutting the building’s power, the rescuers used hydraulic spreaders to pry open the jaws of the temperamental transporter, freeing its frantic--but thankfully uninjured--victim.

According to Poway Fire Capt. Robert Stanberry, it all began about 3:30 p.m. when the cleaning woman’s husband, who was also at work as a janitor in the two-story building, noticed his wife was missing.

After a brief search, he found her--trapped in the elevator and yelling for help. A quick phone call, and firefighters from Poway and San Diego came running.

“When we got there, it was clear that the darn thing had malfunctioned,” Stanberry said. “It just kept going up and down, up and down, and the poor gal was a little on the panicky side.”

No wonder.

Manual Efforts Failed

After manual efforts to stop the errant car failed, the firefighters decided to shut off the building’s power supply.

“Luckily, that stopped the car in one place, on the basement floor,” Stanberry recounted. But there was a downside to the tactic: “The lights in the interior of the car went off, and that really set the poor lady off.”

At first, firefighters were hopeful the woman could somehow trigger a mechanism inside the elevator, opening its doors and enabling them to avert serious damage to the machine. That effort failed, however, and attempts to reach the elevator’s manufacturer for assistance also were to no avail.

Meanwhile, the cleaning woman was growing a tad impatient in her close, dark quarters.

“So, we got our porta-power tools out--they’re kind of like a hydraulic scissors jack, or a big spreader--and we pried the doors open,” Stanberry said, estimating damage at about $1,000.

And the woman?

“She was pretty shaken up by it all,” the fire captain reported. “I mean, it’s not every day that you get caught in an elevator that just won’t stop.”

But despite the traumatic episode, the woman went back to work.