‘I started wondering if I was going to die’: Man trapped in hospital lift for 42 hours

A 59-year-old Indian man thought he was going to die last weekend after spending less than 42 hours trapped in a hospital elevator.

“Because there was no light inside, I did not know whether it was day or night […] I started wondering if I was going to die in the lift,” 50-year-old Ravindran Nair told the BBC on Wednesday.

On Saturday afternoon, the 59-year-old man presented himself with his wife for an X-ray due to back pain at a hospital in Thirunavadapura, South India, when his doctor reportedly asked him for the results of a blood test. He told the British media that he had been forgotten at home.

As his wife was about to start her shift at the same hospital, he would have returned to their home alone.

Back at the hospital, there was a dull hum in the elevator, which immediately stopped between the first and second floors, leaving the fifty-year-old man in the dark.

After trying to reach the emergency number listed in the elevator with his wife and “anyone else he could think of”, without success connecting the call, the man panicked and tried to get attention, he told the BBC.

“That’s when my phone fell on the floor and stopped working. I screamed and screamed for help and tried to open the doors with my hands.[…] Fortunately, there was enough air to breathe,” he continued, explaining that he tried the emergency button several times.

Without a timer, food or water, the man would have spent the next 42 hours hoping someone would come and open the door for him. Fortunately, he had his blood pressure medication with him, although he would have struggled to swallow them due to his dry mouth.

“When I was tired, I slept in one corner. I used another corner to urinate and defecate,” he lamented.

For their part, his relatives were not too concerned about his disappearance due to his irregular working hours and it was not until Sunday morning that they realized he did not come home to sleep.

After a day of trying to find him, he was extricated from his unfortunate position around 6 a.m. Monday, hospitalized for treatment of dehydration and severe back pain.