Staff reporter(wp/es):
More than 20 people were trapped in a packed Tube station lift for an hour and a half on Sunday night after the emergency door failed to open.
Marusca Cirulli, who was one of the passengers locked in, has described her terror and called the lift “a mortal trap and tragedy waiting to happen”.
One of the passengers, a little girl, had to urinate in a plastic bag while another woman suffered a panic attack, she said.
The lift, at Elephant and Castle Tube station, cut out just before it reached the ground on the Tube level on Sunday evening.
“There was some kind of bump,” Ms Cirulli, from Eltham, told the Standard as she described the moment the lift broke at around 6pm.
Staff arrived and tried to open the emergency door on the side of the lift – but it was completely jammed.
“Their emergency door did not open as it was faulty and stuck,” she said.
“The lift was about two metres by two metres, it was quite packed in there and everybody was standing.
“It was stressful, one girl started to cry and had a panic attack. There was a doctor in the lift with us and they tried to calm her down. The rest of us, we got agitated.”
London Fire Brigade were called and at around 7.30pm the lift was fixed, freeing the anxious Tube passengers and allowing them to continue their journey.
But 41-year-old Ms Cirulli said she is worried about the condition of the lifts because of the emergency exit’s failure to open.
“It is obvious that they do not regularly care of maintaining the emergency exit,” she said.
“That lift is a mortal trap and a tragedy waiting to happen.
“If there would have been a fire or any other issue on the outside, we would have died like rats as nobody was able to free us.”
Another woman who was one of the 21 trapped, Emma Parker, said on Twitter: “It took an hour and 20 minutes and the ‘emergency door’ wouldn’t open. Bloody useless.”
The London Ambulance Service’s HART team said: “Tonight we attended a faulty lift full of people at Elephant and Castle.”
They said all passengers were safe and well.
More than 20 people were trapped in a packed Tube station lift for an hour and a half on Sunday night after the emergency door failed to open.
Marusca Cirulli, who was one of the passengers locked in, has described her terror and called the lift “a mortal trap and tragedy waiting to happen”.
One of the passengers, a little girl, had to urinate in a plastic bag while another woman suffered a panic attack, she said.
The lift, at Elephant and Castle Tube station, cut out just before it reached the ground on the Tube level on Sunday evening.
“There was some kind of bump,” Ms Cirulli, from Eltham, told the Standard as she described the moment the lift broke at around 6pm.
Staff arrived and tried to open the emergency door on the side of the lift – but it was completely jammed.
“Their emergency door did not open as it was faulty and stuck,” she said.
“The lift was about two metres by two metres, it was quite packed in there and everybody was standing.
“It was stressful, one girl started to cry and had a panic attack. There was a doctor in the lift with us and they tried to calm her down. The rest of us, we got agitated.”
London Fire Brigade were called and at around 7.30pm the lift was fixed, freeing the anxious Tube passengers and allowing them to continue their journey.
But 41-year-old Ms Cirulli said she is worried about the condition of the lifts because of the emergency exit’s failure to open.
“It is obvious that they do not regularly care of maintaining the emergency exit,” she said.
“That lift is a mortal trap and a tragedy waiting to happen.
“If there would have been a fire or any other issue on the outside, we would have died like rats as nobody was able to free us.”
Another woman who was one of the 21 trapped, Emma Parker, said on Twitter: “It took an hour and 20 minutes and the ‘emergency door’ wouldn’t open. Bloody useless.”
The London Ambulance Service’s HART team said: “Tonight we attended a faulty lift full of people at Elephant and Castle.”
They said all passengers were safe and well.
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