Faridabad: 8-year-old boy stuck in society elevator for two hours; starts doing homework to stay calm

Sumedha Sharma

Faridabad, August 21

In what yet again highlights the poor maintenance of lifts in the National Capital Region (NCR), an 8-year-old boy in Faridabad remained stuck in a lift for around 2 hours on Sunday.

However, what was remarkable was that he remained calm and remembered his father’s lesson of not panicking in crises. The boy just sat waiting and did his homework to distract himself before he was rescued.

The family has now moved the authorities complaining about the poor upkeep of lifts in society and sought action.

The incident was reported from Omaxe Heights society in Faridabad and has now gone viral on social media. The child’s father, Pawan Chandila, a professional working in Gurugram, revealed that their family resides on the fourth floor of the apartment building. The incident took place on a Sunday evening when his son Garvit washeaded downstairs to the ground floor for his tuitions ataround 5 pm. Usually his mother goes to drop him but she was not well and he went alone. It was then thatlift stuck on the second floor.

“We had taught Garvit safety protocols in such a situation. He made efforts to alert the authorities by pressing the emergency button and knocking on the door, seeking help. Regrettably, his appeals went unanswered. He told us that as panic started to set in, he decided to keep his cool by distracting himself and opened his books and started doing homework,” said Pawan Chandila.

An hour later, his tuition teacher called the Chandila family, to inform them that he hadn’t reached the class. Parents launched a search and it was through the security guard that they learned about the elevator being non-operational since 5 pm.

Consequently, the technical team was summoned, and the situation was eventually resolved at around 7 pm with Garvit safely rescued from the elevator. The family has sought action against the responsible authorities for lift maintenance claiming malfunction was regular feature and though their son managed to brave panic, it could have done major harm.

“We need to fix accountabilityfor alleged negligence, the lift had remained unrepaired for an extended period,” added Chandila.