BANGALORE, Apr 14 (TOI): Tulsi S Rao is not going to forget her nightmare in a lift anytime soon. The homemaker went through a three-hour ordeal stuck in her apartment's lift, as her husband struggled to get help.
For Tulsi, 48, a resident of Srivari Apartments on Sampige Road, it was a second claustrophobic experience in three months.
Her husband came down on hearing her cries and called up the building management to get a mechanic, but no one turned up. Finally, police were called in and she was rescued. She lodged a complaint of negligence against the building's welfare association.
Tulsi told TOI she got into the lift around 2pm, to go shopping. Coming down from her second floor flat, the lift got stuck. "I was a little shocked, but was confident the lift would start once the power supply resumed. But I waited for hours," she said.
Half an hour elapsed, and neither did the lift move nor did anyone hear her pleas for help. "I had panic attacks. My phone wasn't working, and after an hour, I began having trouble breathing and worst of all, I started feeling claustrophobic," she said.
Tulsi was furious that no one in the apartment came to her rescue. "I was shouting at the top of my voice, yet no one heard me," she said.
Finally, it was her businessman husband Nataraj Rao who heard her cries and came out of the flat. He tried to press some buttons, but they didn't work. Then he asked the building management to call the mechanic in charge, but no one turned up.
He kept talking to her and giving food and water through the narrow gap in the lift doors to make sure she was fine. Fed up with the apathy, he called the police, who got a mechanic and pulled her out around 5.30pm.
Tulsi headed straight to the police station and lodged a complaint against the building management. "We pay them Rs 1,400 every month for security, lift maintenance and cleaning. I was trapped inside this lift for the second time in three months," she said.
In her complaint, she said there were many more such complaints and the manual lift, installed almost 12 years ago, was not maintained at all, posing a threat to residents.