I Do Not Like Elevators
How do you feel when you ride in an elevator?
I get nervous.
There is something about being in a small box held onto by cables that rockets you thirty-five stories off the ground, dangles there while you get in or out, and then plunges thirty-five floors to get you back to the street.
It doesn’t seem natural and it feels dangerous.
I don’t want my stomach to jump up to my throat whenever I’m traveling in an elevator. It doesn’t seem right. I don’t want to think about being suspended thirty-five flights up by a cable.
We hear about elevators getting stuck but we never hear about them falling down.
In 236 B.C., the first primitive elevator was designed by Archimedes. It was operated by hoisting ropes around a drum that was operated by men. By the mid-19th century elevators were powered by steam or water but the ropes they used could wear out so they generally weren’t trusted.
It was in 1852 that Elisha Graves Otis invented a safety brake that would stop an elevator if the roped failed.
This is all wonderful technology and the higher elevators climb I’m sure top engineers have figured out all sorts of safety devices.
And the idea of having to climb thirty-five flights of stairs to get to your office every day seems foolish and a lot of hard work.
It’s nice knowing that in addition to much stronger cables elevators have brakes as a back up so even if a cable snaps the brakes will hold the elevator in place.
I was in an elevator once that got stuck. It was an outdoor elevator in Seattle on a hot sunny day. The elevator suddenly stopped in the middle of its ascent. As the sun beat down I realized there was a baby among us. Then I realized the baby needed its diaper changed. Badly.
I stopped worrying about the baby and started worrying about my own breathing.
Why not build escalators instead? If an escalator stops you can just walk to the next floor. I would take an escalator up thirty-five floors. Well not the same one you’d have to get off on each floor and get on the next one. It seems so much safer.
But according to statistics elevators are safer than escalators. There are twenty times more elevators than escalators, but only one-third more accidents.
And riding in an elevator is safer then driving a car. An average of twenty-six people die in elevator accidents a year. To put that in perspective, there are twenty-six car related deaths every five hours.
So why am I afraid of elevators?
Because the Otis Elevator building in Portland, Oregon is only one story tall.
Think about it.
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This is an excerpt from my new collection of short stories, Burn Up At Re-Entry, coming this fall.
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