Elevator had earlier problems
Seniors were forced to take stairs weeks before cable snapped, trapping riders
Jasmine Wittal and her grandparents had just paid their bill after dinner at Sky 360, the Calgary Tower’s revolving restaurant, and were heading toward the exit when they were told the elevators weren’t working.
It was June 18, nearly a month before the July 12 elevator malfunction at the tower in which two of the six support cables snapped, trapping eight people in a car for hours.
Wittal, her grandparents, Sophie and Guenther Haegele, and Sophie’s sister, Elke Bruhm, who was visiting from Germany, did not anticipate they would be stuck atop the 191-metre tower when they ascended via elevator hours before.
One of the tower’s two elevators was already out of order before they made their way up to the restaurant. By the time they’d finished their meals, the second one had stopped working as well.
“They said they didn’t know if it would be fixed in 20 minutes, two hours or overnight, so they suggested we sit down and they’d let us know,” Sophie, 83, said. “We sat for about an hour and a half and were told different stories, but they said the fire department had been called … to assist us down the stairs.”
After another half an hour had passed, Wittal decided to make the descent down 802 stairs to investigate, having not seen any fire trucks or emergency vehicles parked on 9th Avenue below.
“The manager told us before I left that the fireman was halfway up the stairs but by the time I got down, no one was there … the fire department hadn’t even been called,” she said.
Fire battalion chief Bruce Barrs confirmed there was a call from the Calgary Tower at 8:25 p.m. on June 18 reporting concerns from the restaurant manager that the elevators weren’t working.
“We arrived to find an elevator tech working on the elevators and were informed at that point that one of the elevators would be functioning shortly to bring those people down from the top floor,” Barrs said.
“At the time it was routine … Obviously, now I look back and think there was a potential issue with the elevator that presented itself and caused us to have to rescue those people last week.”
Wittal quickly got on the phone with 311 and eventually the fire department. Barrs said they received a second call to the tower nearly an hour after the first, at 9:13 p.m.
“We decided maybe we should go down because we certainly didn’t want to spend the night there,” Sophie said. They started down the stairs while waiting for the fire department to arrive.
“I have a really bad ankle, I’m going for surgery next week and my husband has heart failure and my sister, too, has issues with her knees,” she said.
“We did it slowly and got about 75 per cent down when the fire department arrived.”
By the time they made it all the way down, Guenther, also 83, was in distress. EMS were called and assessed him. After he caught his breath, he was given the all-clear.
Sophie said her daughter called restaurant management the next day and was told they were planning a meeting to discuss what happened and would be in touch with her soon.
“She phoned back the next day and they were very evasive and blaming the tower, saying it wasn’t their problem … that the tower looks after the elevators,” she said.
“They asked her what she wanted and she said ‘nothing, just an apology,’ and they just said ‘oh, yes, we are going to phone’ but we haven’t been contacted since then.”
Sore joints and muscles aside, Wittal and her grandmother said they are thankful that their experience wasn’t as bad as what the group who were trapped last week went through.
“When I heard about the (elevator malfunction) last week I wasn’t surprised at all,” Wittal said. “I was actually really disappointed they didn’t do something about it before. Instead of addressing it, they just ignored it.”
“I find it really disturbing,” Sophie said. “If they had done something then maybe these other people wouldn’t have had to go through that.”
Executive members of staff at the Calgary Tower and Aspen Properties Management Ltd., the property management company that owns the tower, refused to comment.
I have a really bad ankle, I’m going for surgery next week and my husband has heart failure and my sister, too, has issues with her knees.