‘Urinated in corner, cried loud’: Kerala man, who was stuck in lift for 42 hours, shares horror
Raveendran Nair, who is a local CPI leader and employee at the legislators' hostel from Ullur, visited the Kerala hospital for back pain treatment.
Days after 59-year-old Raveendran Nair was stuck in a lift at the Government Medical College in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram for 42 hours, he described the incident as a nightmare. Raveendran Nair said he tried ringing the alarm button several times and calling all the helpline numbers in the lift, but no one came to his rescue.
Nair, who is a local CPI leader and employee at the legislators' hostel from Ullur, visited the hospital for back pain treatment. His wife Sreelekha, who works at the hospital, accompanied him. After getting an X-ray, he was taking the elevator to see the doctor when it got stuck.
Speaking to The Indian Express, he said, “I pressed the alarm button, but there was no response. There was no intercom to connect with the lift operator. Using my phone, I tried several (helpline) numbers written inside the elevator. There was no response. Then the phone fell and stopped working.”
After that, as he sat waiting for help, Nair realised that the next day was Sunday, and he might be stuck there until Monday.
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“I urinated in a corner. Sometimes, I would cry out loud. I couldn’t sleep. When I felt thirsty or hungry, I just licked my lips. I kept pressing the alarm bell regularly. Although the lift chamber had no fan or light, some air continued to waft in, ensuring a continuous supply of oxygen,” he told the newspaper.
Eventually, he lost track of time. To stay positive, he recited his wife's poems, which he knew by heart.
When he didn't come home on Saturday, his wife and their two sons weren't too worried, thinking it was due to his irregular work hours. But when he didn’t return on Sunday, and they couldn't reach him on the phone, they began to worry. After calling the legislators' hostel and the CPI office, the family found out that Nair had been missing since Saturday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, they filed a missing person report at the local police station and began searching for him.
“They were in shock. They had searched the premises of the medical college, but never knew I was trapped in the elevator,” Nair said.
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No one knew that Nair was stuck in the lift. His family members said there were no signs showing the lift was out of order, news agency ANI reported.
Nair was eventually rescued by a lift operator on Monday. An official told The Indian Express, “According to norms, lift operators should bring down such elevators, open the doors and examine the chamber. But this didn’t happen on Saturday.”
After being rescued at 6am on Monday, he was admitted to the hospital.
The Kerala Health Department suspended three staff members — two lift operators and a duty sergeant — from the medical college hospital on Monday due to the incident.
Health minister Veena George also ordered an immediate investigation into the matter.