Three trapped in lift for five hours in Vasai

SkyBar, the restaurant where the youths had dinner right before being trapped in the elevator

Three friends were trapped in an elevator in a Vasai building for nearly five hours early on Monday.

Ashish Patel (23), Vishal Jarsania (23), and a friend who wished to remain anonymous had dinner after Holi celebrations at SkyBar restaurant on the fourth floor of Tania Planet building in Vasai West on Sunday night. While leaving around midnight, they took the elevator, but it got stuck between the ground and the first floors.

"We frantically pushed some buttons in hope of making the lift move, but it did not work. The display kept fluctuating between the fifth and the third floors," said Patel.

The friends managed to pry open the lift doors, but found themselves staring at the wall between the first and the ground floors. With poor cellphone reception signal, they couldn't even call for help.

Around 1.30 am, Patel managed to place an SOS call to his elder brother, Manish, who was nearby.

Manish rushed to the spot and tried to get the elevator to move with the help of the building watchman. But the lift didn't budge. In the meantime, the friends began to face breathing problems. Manish then got the entrance to the elevator on the ground floor opened for ventilation.

"Initially, we were a bit frightened and had trouble breathing in the first two hours of being trapped. But after we called Manish bhai, he got the entrance to the lift opened from the ground floor so that fresh air could enter. We felt slightly more at ease then and were able to breathe better," said Jarsania.

Ashish Patel, Vishal Jarsania and Manish Patel

Manish finally called the fire brigade at Nalasopara Link Road around 4 am. Four firemen arrived at the spot within 10 minutes, and had just begun to cut the elevator cables when the caretaker of Tania Planet showed up. "He went to the terrace and rotated the belt that controlled the lift, and slowly brought the lift down," said Patel.

The three youths finally got out, unscathed, close to 5 am.