Firefighters to the rescue

Stuffed and happy after a delicious ham dinner at Jack and Judy’s, my buddy Marvin Kocian and I got in my elevator. I pressed “5.”

We were talking politics or bridge or golf or whatever when, after a few seconds, I noticed that the cab hadn’t moved. I pressed “5” again. 

“Hmmm,” I said. “This isn’t good.”

“I think we’re stuck,” Marv said, his eyes wide open.

I pressed the “door open” button and got nothing. Then, I pressed alarm, and a screeching sound started blaring.

I saw a “push for help” button and pressed it. After a couple of rings, someone answered.

“Hello!” I said into a circle of holes in the metal panel. “Can you hear me?”

She apparently couldn’t. And if she said anything else, we couldn’t hear her over the screeching din.
I yanked my phone out of my shorts and called Longboat Key police. A kind dispatcher called the fire department. Help was on the way.

After just a couple of minutes, I heard sirens, then rapid chatter.

“We’re here!” someone said. “Are you OK?”

“Yes!” we said in unison.

“Is there a medical emergency?” 

“No,” I said. “We’re fine.”

There was considerable chatter outside. The door budged, but it was stubborn. The effort continued for four or five minutes.

“We’re going to turn off the power,” one firefighter said. “It might get dark in there!”

“That’s cool,” I said. I took out my phone to provide us with some light, just in case.

And then, a beautiful thing happened. The door slid open. Outside were five firefighters, one wielding an ax.

We all smiled. High-fives all around!

Mr. Peterson, the president of my condo association, came down and called the elevator repair company.

“You know, if we weren’t on the first floor I would have been terrified,” I told him.

I could hear on the emergency scanner a report of someone choking. I patted the firefighters on the back; they quickly left.

Marv went home. I took the stairs to my apartment.

Thank you, Kerri Brooks, Brian Kolesa, Tirso Guerrero, Chase Opela and Jeff Bullock!

Dean Congbalay is a Portobello resident.