Real life Tower of Terror

The Tower of Terror is one of my favorite rides at Disney World. The ride takes place in an elevator in a haunted hotel. Once you get up to the 13^th story, the doors open up, revealing to the passengers the height of which they are about to fall. Then without warning, the elevator drops. Everyone screams as their stomachs go through the roof. But after a few seconds, the ride is over. No one is actually ‘terrorized” by the experience, and most walk away thrilled rather than traumatized. It’s a fun ride.

I learned the other day, however- that real life elevator mishaps are not so thrilling. Though it’s a comical story to tell now, I was scared out of my mind at the time. It all started when I went with my class to the Kuala Lumpur communication tower in Malaysia. This is the 5^th largest communication tower in the world. Its 260+ floors offer an impressive (yet overpriced) view of the city.

Our elevator ride up the tower was great and took exactly 58 seconds. After spending some time up top, Dr. Pate, Michael, Bekah, Alan and I got on the elevator along with 3 Chinese Malaysians. It was 3:00 in the afternoon. As the doors closed we were all laughing and Alan joked about how he was going to jump and make the elevator stop. We went down, down, down, until all of the sudden we heard what sounded like emergency breaks. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” The elevator shook and I gripped the handle as it came to a sudden, unexpected stop. We were all still laughing and I was having a flashback of my childhood memories at Disney World.

As the laughter died down, reality began to sink in. The doors were still closed, there was no “ding” to tell us we had arrived at the ground level, and worst of all- there was no airflow. We hit the intercom button several times and finally a voice came through the speakers.

Yes! A connection to the outside world! Unfortunately that connection was not very comforting or helpful. In broken English, he asked how many people were in the elevator and how many of us were foreigners. I’m still not really sure why that mattered. Do they rescue one nationality more quickly than another? We told him there were 8 of us and 5 were American. The voice told us “Rescue coming” and then disappeared, leaving us alone in our confined little box.

At this point, we’re in high spirits thinking that if rescue is coming, it will be soon. But as minute after minute ticks away, my imagination gets the worst of me and I begin to picture every scenario that could take place. We realize that there are no vents in the elevator and it is HOT. Very hot. In my mind I’m thinking “There are eight of us in this confined space. We are going to use up all of the air and I’m going to suffocate!”

Sometimes I think about the way I want to go out. If I don’t die in my sleep, I guess I’d at least like to go out while doing something admirable or exciting. Suffocating in an elevator is not the way I imagined leaving the earth at the age of 23. Everyone is still talking and laughing. I, on the other hand, am sitting on the floor, knees glued to my chest, eyes squeezed shut, all the while thinking, “They need to stop laughing…they are using up valuable oxygen and we need to conserve it!” (pretty sure it doesn’t even work like that…but still).

I start wondering how they are going to get my body all the way back to America. Should I scribble a farewell not to my loved ones on the back of my receipt? It doesn’t help that my jokester professor is recording a message to his sons on his flip. He starts out by saying, “Boys, if you’re watching this alone, that probably means it ended up poorly for all of us.” Awesome. Thanks for the encouragement, Dr. Pate.

About 30 minutes have passed now and there’s still no sign of rescue. I’m really sweating now, but I’m trying to save the last few gulps of water I have in my water bottle in case times get worse. Someone makes the comment, “Do you think we’re on a Malaysian game show?” Maybe they will open up the doors and have a camera crew filming us, waiting to see how we interacted as a team. If only it was a joke. We put our brains together and think that there must be a way to crawl out of the top. I mean, that’s how they do it on the movies, right? But alas, there’s no secret escape up top. We are closed in from every angle. At about 3:35, Michael has the brilliant idea none of us had thought of before. We can manually push the door open! Without much effort, the door opens and my spirits soar. It doesn’t matter that we are against a concrete wall and still have no way of getting out…we now have airflow!

I make a comment that now the worst case scenario is that we’re trapped a few more hours, but now at least they could lower us some water in through the door. Dr. Pate bites his tongue thinking that there are much worse scenarios (aka plummeting to our deaths- I didn’t think about that one).

The voice enters the box we’ve come to call “the sauna” again. It’s been over an hour now. To our surprise, instead of giving us an update, asks again, “How many people are in the elevator?” Seriously? Did you forget this already? And why does it matter? Or is he checking to see if anyone has died since he last checked in on us? We are getting frustrated with the voice now. He says, “Rescue coming from outside.” He tells us we need to keep the door closed. Dr. Pate informs the voice that if the door is closed we can’t breathe and we are going to die. In hopes of speeding up the process he adds, “We have four ladies lying on the ground fainting. You need to hurry.” I cup my hand over my mouth so the voice won’t hear me laughing at my professor’s exaggeration.

After an hour and a half, I start looking for entertainment. Bekah and I play a few rounds of tic-tac-toe. We get to know our Chinese neighbors (Yap, Tan and May). I’m trying to do anything to get my mind off of the obvious. I’m no longer worried about suffocating. Now my mind is on the more pressing matter…the fact that I most definitely have got to go to the bathroom.

You know, through my travels, I’ve had some unique bathroom experiences. In China, I used a hole in the ground with no stalls separating me from the strangers beside me. In Sri Lanka, it was a wooden shack on the side of the road with mud and bugs. Either one of those options now seemed great compared to the predicament I was in. Not only was I in mixed company, I was also in a very confined space.

I began weighing my options. “Maybe if I move around a lot, I can sweat it all off.” Not likely. I suppose I could use my water bottle- but that would mean sacrificing the sacred final drops of water- not sure I want to do that. Then I had the most brilliant idea of all…the shaft! I was already sitting closest to the door, so if I told everyone to turn the other way, I could position myself directly over the shaft and hope that the inside of the elevator stayed clean. At least I was wearing a skirt.

I’m already preparing myself for the utter humiliation that I’m about to experience when, as if from heaven, we move an inch down. Everyone starts cheering! The voice was right- after 2 hours and 15 minutes, rescue had finally come. Slowly but surely, we are lowered down inch by inch. As I peer down the shaft I still see nothing but concrete. But then, I see it- an eyeball looking up at me from a hole in the wall! It was the most beautiful eye ball I had ever seen. It represented hope and freedom.

Soon we saw light coming in from the 4^th floor and heard clapping and cheering. They lowered us until we had enough room to jump out of the elevator into safety. I have never been so relieved in my life. It was like waking up from a really terrible nightmare.

Everyone was laughing and hugging each other. They greeted us with bottles of water. I raced to the bathroom before I could do anything else and kept thanking Jesus for getting me out of that trap! Once my bladder was relieved, I could truly join the celebration. I took deep breaths- appreciating the endless supply of fresh air around me.

They treated us to smoothies and gave us a full refund. They also said we could go up for free the next time we came back. I smiled and thanked them, but was really thinking, “Now way, Jose! I have no desire to ever go up that tube of death again!” The view from the bottom will be just fine for me. I think I’ll stay on the ground where there is plenty of life’s 3 essentials: Water, Oxygen, and toilets.