What Happens If Your Get Stuck In an Elevator? Here’s What Not To Do

This is a situation that no one wants to get themselves into, but life tends to find a way as they say. I got myself stuck in an elevator right here in the Capital Region this week, and while it was a little scary we all made it out safely.

On Wednesday I went to Walmart on Washington Avenue Extension. It's one of the largest Walmart stores in the world and is two stories for those of you who don't know. They have large escalators that take you between the two, with special escalators for the carts. But, they happen to be broken a lot of the time forcing us all into the elevator. It just so happened that the elevator also broke. My lucky day.

Thankfully we were only in there for about 10 minutes total, which felt like a lot longer. Also, to the maintenance man who said this as the doors opened "how did they get in here?" Dude, we went in the doors like everyone else does. There wasn't anything suggesting it was broken prior to entering.

Read More: Big Changes Planned For NY Walmart Locations

If you are stuck in an elevator there's some things you shouldn't do. Panic is number one, which the folks I was with did a great job of. We all remained calm and collected except for one guy who was trying to pry the doors open. The same doors that opened to nothing but a shaft earlier. So he was no help.

According to Liberty Elevator out of New York City, here's what you should do if you find yourself in the same situation that I did.

• Stay calm is there number one piece of advise, and that makes the most sense to me. If you panic you can't think.
• Next, ring the alarm to alert them of the situation. We did exactly that and help arrived rather quickly.
• Check your cell phone signal. We were lucky to not have lost service in the elevator, which is pretty common.
• Focus on your task. That task is pretty much all of the above.

The biggest don't is not to pry the doors open. Also, don't jump. I feel like that should be common sense, but a guy in my elevator did try to rip the doors open so who knows what would have happened if he could have fit out of them.

Be safe out there, people!