What was supposed to be a fun dinner for an uptown family turned into a nerve-wracking ordeal when several passengers were stuck on an elevator following an electricity outage in a Virac hotel last Monday, July 14.
The group, the youngest of which was nine months old, was stuck inside the pitch-black, sweltering elevator for about 10 minutes before relatives and staff, with the help of a foreigner hotel guest, could get them to safety.
The victims said that the elevator came to an abrupt stop shortly after leaving the ground floor at 5:44 PM, with no backup lights or ventilation to aid them.
After they had pressed the emergency button, staff responded shortly and assured the husband of one of the passengers that they would be changing to generator power shortly.
However, the husband said that a few minutes had already passed, and no change of power had taken place.
“By the eight-minute mark, nothing was still happening. I kept saying, ‘What now? There are children there, they might not be able to breathe’,” he told the Catanduanes Tribune.
Only then did the staff discover that the elevator had stopped in between the second and third floors.
As cries of the children echoed outside the third floor, the husband said that staff members grew increasingly panicked as they tried to pry the elevator doors open with their bare hands and some tools.
“We were panicking. Because even if the staff were telling us not to panic, we had kids with us. They were crying because of the heat and the lack of light and air. It even became so hot that we had them take off their shirts,” one of the adults stuck in the elevator said.
Another relative, a foreigner who had worked abroad on the same type of elevators for more than a decade, told staff to retrieve the elevator key.
Even with the elevator key, however, the foreigner said that the staff were repeatedly unable to open the door with the key, before he convinced them to give him the key and open the elevator door.
“What if he [the foreigner] wasn’t there? Then the rescue would have taken much longer, since no one else there knew how to open it,” the husband added.
The children were first ushered to safety before the adults, not before one of the women hit her head on the edge of the elevator when she was pulled upwards too fast.
After they were moved to a KTV room, the family said that no one from the hotel management visited or offered medical care.
The victims said that the staff apologized for the incident only after they went to pay at the cashier, who offered a 50%-off discount on their bill.
They added that two staff members approached the foreigner asking for training on how to access the elevator in similar scenarios, only for them to be absent when the foreigner came back the following day.
The Tribune later discovered after checking with the First Catanduanes Electric Cooperative that the cause for the outage was due to a busted fuse on the tapping pole.
Lack of protocol?
Despite the rescue, the family of the victims pointed out several shortcomings of the hotel staff, such as the lack of qualified technician or safety officer at the scene.
All workplaces are required to designate at least one safety officer as mandated by Republic Act 11058 or the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Act.
Despite this, no call was made to first responders such as the Virac Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (MDRRMO), the Bureau of Fire Protection, or the Philippines Red Cross, all of which confirmed having trained for similar scenarios.
Another cause for concern that the victims pointed out was the lack of emergency features for the elevator.
Aside from lights and ventilation, the elevator was unable to completely stop at the third floor, contrary to the sign on the elevator which said that the elevator would be able to bring passengers to the nearest floor in cases of power surges or outages.
According to a mechanical engineer, elevators must comply with safety standards mandated by the Department of Public Works and Highways and must undergo regular inspections annually to ensure that they meet these standards.
“It is the responsibility of the owner or operator to have the elevator inspected every year,” he said, citing the lack of a mechanical engineer at the local government unit.
The elevator installed should likewise have safety features to enhance user safety and to mitigate risks such as mechanical failure or accidents.
Among the safety features common in a modern elevator include an emergency brake, alarms, intercom system, fire safety protection, overload sensor, door sensor, ventilation system, security camera, backup power device, and the so-called Automatic Rescue Device that guides the elevator to the nearest floor and open the doors in case of a power failure.
As of publication, the Tribune is still seeking comment from the hotel management. — Tribune exclusive by Erwin James Gianan