It was a pretty normal birthday party until the police and fire department showed up.
No, birthday girl Kathi Wasserloos of Antrim and her party guests hadn’t gotten out of hand. Instead, emergency crews were responding after Wasserloos’ grand-niece and step-granddaughter had gotten stuck in the Town Hall’s elevator and picked up the emergency line for help.
Piper Oskan, 7, of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Katherine Normandeau, 9, of Dummerston, Vermont, were riding the elevator down from the Town Hall’s second floor to the first. While the elevator arrived safely at the bottom floor entrance, the doors refused to open.
“[Rescue personnel] were awesome,” said Wasserloos, who said that Katherine and Piper were ultimately stuck for about 40 minutes. “When it first happened, they were scared, but then they were really good about the whole thing. They kept themselves occupied playing ‘pass the balloon.’ ”
Soon enough, Antrim Patrolman Juan Lluberes was on scene, talking to the girls through the door. Shortly thereafter, the fire crews arrived to get the girls out of the elevator.
The issue, said Fire Chief Marshall Gale, was that the elevator had a mechanical error that allowed the car to stop a few inches below the first floor level. That was enough to trigger security measures to make sure that the doors wouldn’t open.
Elevators have a key that can be inserted into the doors from the outside and override those measures, but in this case, the key was nowhere to be found, and the Fire Department did not carry a spare, said Gale. After attempting to solve the problem from the elevator’s mechanical room – which also involved shutting off the elevator’s power for safety, leaving the two girls in the dark momentarily – it became clear that there was only one solution.
“Ultimately that left a forcible entry. We were able to pry open the door enough using hand tools that they could get out,” said Gale. “They were really troopers about it. They were calm and ultimately, they’ll have an experience to tell at school this week.”
Piper made sure to thank her rescuers with a note this week, one each to the Fire Department and the Police Department, reading, “Thank you for getting me out of the elevator. Thank you for your hard work. Love, Piper.”
The extraction of Piper and Katherine left cosmetic damage on the door, said Gale, but the elevator will be out of commission until it can be assessed by a service company.
And, Gale added, when it’s up and running again, the Fire Department will request that they are given a copy of the emergency key.