A seven-year-old girl was trapped in a lift in a high-rise building for about 20 minutes in a building situated in Lucknow’s Jankipuram Extension area on Wednesday. The girl braved the trauma of being stuck in the lift and struggled for about 20 minutes. She finally managed to come out when the lift that got stuck on the 20th floor, opened automatically.
Officials with the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA), the government agency that owns the building, while calling it a ‘technical snag’, shed the responsibility and passed the buck to the lift maintenance agency and the electricity department.
The matter came to light when the video of the little girl struggling in the lift went viral on social media. In the video, the seven-year-old, dressed in a green t-shirt and black trousers, can be seen crying for help. She can also be seen making efforts to open the stuck lift and calling her brother and parents for help.
The incident that surged through the internet unfolded at around 1 pm on Wednesday when the girl identified as 7-year-old Dhwani Awasthi, resident of B-Block, 11th floor, boarded the lift to reach her floor. “I pressed the lift’s button but before I could deboard, it closed again and started moving upwards again. Before I could react to the situation, the lift got stuck on the 20th floor,” Dhwani told the locals.
Ajay Singh, Dhwani’s neighbour, said that there were frequent power cuts on the day. “Possibly due to the frequent power cuts, the lift got stuck. It was almost after 20 minutes that the heavy-duty doors of the lift opened automatically when the electricity supply resumed,” Singh added. “The girl was traumatised and is still in a state of shock.”
Some locals pointed out that ideally, in case of power cuts, the lift generally stops at the nearest floor. But, possibly due to technical reasons, the lift, instead of stopping at the next floor, went all the way to the 20th floor before getting stuck.
However, when News18 contacted LDA chief engineer AK Singh, he said he was not aware of the matter. “It might be due to the technical snag. I will get it checked with the company looking after its maintenance,” he said. He further blamed the electricity department and said due to the frequent power cuts and fluctuations, a lift in a building generally gets stuck.
It might be a blame game for the officers and agencies responsible, but for the seven-year-old, say locals, it’s a memory that would haunt her for life. “Such incidents often leave a person with a scarred memory. The girl who can be seen struggling in the lift often needs some psychological sessions to come out of the trauma. The incident might also affect her day-to-day life. Also, the incident might make her claustrophobic or instil the fear of getting stuck in the elevator in her forever,” said Manini Srivastava, assistant professor, psychology department, University of Lucknow.
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