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Comment by mholt | Hacker News Reader

> Mosh (and its tolerance for high packet loss) helps Iain Learmonth escape from an elevator.

Um, wow! https://mosh.mit.edu/elevator.txt

Hey, never, but never, go out of an elevator that isn't leveled in the floor. By the description, I understand that he jumped from the elevator. If the elevator started to move, he could have been cut in half. This happened other day in my city.

If you are stuck in a elevator, wait for professional help to take you out.

And watch this[0] entire (super entertaining) talk from Hope X about elevator security. You get a pretty good feal for how the safety measures work after watching it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUvGfuLlZus

I once dreamt I was cut in half by a lift. It was not at all fun, so I'd definitely follow this advice :-D

The other piece of lift related advice (that I really enjoy saying in more crowded, rickety lifts): I once read if in a lift that is falling you should attempt to lie flat on the bottom of the lift to limit the impact - preferably on top of another human. Some hacker news physicist will prove me apocryphal here I'm sure...

If an elevator is falling for long enough to give you time to recognize the situation, recall this strategy, and actually lie prone upon the floor (in ~0G, somehow)… it's not going to matter.

You both should watch the elevator hacking talk that was given at HOPE X: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUvGfuLlZus

Seconding this: I like to put hacker con talks on in the background while I do other things, and this was the most entertaining panel from HOPE X in my opinion

This is already very entertaining :-) Thanks!

There's a video of security footage from some elevator in South America (Argentina I think) in a brand new building. The elevator brakes failed and it launched upward (from the counter weight). Dude survived with major injuries. Others have said he should have laid down flat, but at that velocity who knows if it would have done any good.

I've read somewhere that a free falling elevator is almost impossible due to its automatic brakes.

> If you are stuck in a elevator, wait for professional help to take you out.

Sometimes that doesn't work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/03/0...

In China...Hmm I would think that considering the population she would have been noticed. Terrible..

But if it's stopped, why would you expect it to be more likely to move suddenly (and without the doors closing) because it's not level?

I've often seen (and used) lifts with notices up like:

    Warning: does not level. Wheelchair users use other lift.

There's a horrible video I don't feel like looking up at work of a dude in an elevator that's acting all erratically. A guy with a baby stroller is about to get in. The guy tells the guy not to; the elevator hasn't been behaving correctly (there's no audio/security video. Guy tells the police this later). Guy in the elevator looks terrified.

The man with the stroller steps in and the elevator cuts him in half. There's a trail of blood on the wall where the man use to be. It turns out the maintenance guy forgot to put out barriers saying the elevator was under repair. He was moving it from above and didn't realize people were getting in.

There's not enough detail in the link. You can force the doors of an elevator to open it. Sometimes there's just a small hole to go through. The elevator had problems and was moving arbitrary. Sure, if it is just 5cm off, go for it, but don't think you are inside a movie and it is save to go out. In doubt, stay quiet.

Do you live in China by any chance?

That reminds me of the IT crowd episode where Moss sends an email to the fire department to report a fire.

I dont get the plot. He got text messages to his flatmate, but the one asking his flatmate to call the council never made it. So his flatmate is dumb enough to need explicit instructions to call for help when a friend says they are trapped? Or were the first few texts he sent "hey whats up?" and "doing anything later?"? Why have your flatmate call "the council" when the obvious ask, and the one requested via email, was to call the fire brigade?

I cannot remember for this building specifically, but I've noticed in others that the emergency instructions are indeed to call the council.

I was the flatmate. We never got a message through. I was busy on my own side courting a fine lady, and did not expect any sort of communication. I learned of the story only the next day, when I went back to work.

The building in question is operated by the city council, which did great for low rent. I think many people, me included, would have thought of calling the council first, before the fire brigade, as the city keeps technicians round the clock (supposedly) to deal with such problems.

I'm rather pleased by the elegant use of this software for such a situation.

Perhaps from the first two text messages didn't have enough information to tell what elevator he was stuck in?

Take your pick for my first txt:

  EMERGENCY trapped in our lift
  PAN-PAN trapped in our lift
  911 trapped in our lift

Are we golfing text messages?

    SOS stuk in our lift

    SOSstukinourlift

As I'm from Yorkshire

    SOSstckint'lift

It saddens me that people knew he was trapped and did nothing to help him out.

Woah. I've never seen an elevator without a phone. Like maybe in a developing country but in the UK that seriously isn't in the building code?

It is in the Lift Regulations 1997:

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/831/schedule/1/parag...

In accordance with the 1995 EU Directive:

* http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:...

But it is not retroactive:

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1997/831/regulation/5/mad...

However, there were of course earlier regulations.

* http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1991/2748/schedule/1/made

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