A visit to their ailing mother at St Vincent de Paul Residence ended in trauma for a family of five who were stuck in a lift for more than three hours.

As it started going down, it gave a couple of jolts and came to a halt

“Every minute felt like eternity,” Anthony Bezzina, 62, from Qrendi, said as he recounted the ordeal of being boxed in a lift, 1.2 by 1.2 square metres, with his four relatives.

At 5.45pm after bidding farewell to his mother, he made for the lift to get to the ground floor, going in with his 34-year-old daughter, his brother, his nephew and his nephew’s girlfriend.

Mr Bezzina’s wife had gone down before the lot, with two of her grandchildren.

Initially the lift went one floor up, so Mr Bezzina pressed the ground floor button again. As it started descending, it gave a couple of jolts and came to a halt – right between the second and the third floors of Serenity Ward.

“We panicked when we opened the door to find a brick wall. But then we reasoned that it would probably take a few minutes for everything to be sorted out,” he said, his voice trembling as he relived the moment.

The few minutes stretched to more than three-and-a-half hours: they were rescued at 9.10pm. They were so cramped they had to take it in turns to squat, and crouch down for a bit of air, from the slight three-inch opening at the bottom of the door.

“My grandchildren could see us up there and they wouldn’t stop crying,” he said.

Only Mr Bezzina’s mobile phone had connection in the lift and he immediately called 112, then his wife who was waiting on the floor downstairs. The ward staff immediately alerted the maintenance team, the lift installers and the Civil Protection Department.

The rescue operation was an elaborate one, with the rescuers having to set up chain blocks to lower the lift cabin, according to the Secretariat for the Elderly.

We panicked when we opened the door to find a brick wall

In the meantime, the home’s chief of security kept talking to the Bezzinas, passing on little glasses of water through the tiny gap.

“He even offered us food and set up fans to ventilate the lift, from the chink,” he said, adding that he did not know how he could ever thank “such a gentleman”.

They did not drink much, however, as they were scared they would need to use the toilet. “And the more you try not to think about it, the worse it is,” he said laughing nervously.

As time ticked by and they heard the lift installers say the lift brakes were “jammed” and “would not budge”, the Bezzinas started to panic. “You have to understand we were getting claustrophobic in there,” he said.

The secretariat said the lift, installed in 2001, could carry up to 400kg. “The indications were that it was overloaded and as a result the emergency brake kicked in,” the spokesman said.

Mr Bezzina is baffled by this as it was not the first time he was in the lift with the very same people and they never had “problems”.

“I admit we probably made up 420kg in total but I would think the lift would not have worked if it was overloaded,” he said.

He stressed that he did not want to point fingers and he was “immensely grateful” to everyone involved in the rescue operation.

The authorities of St Vincent de Paul said the lift was maintained regularly and an inquiry had been ordered.

Looking on the bright side Mr Bezzina said: “These things can happen. You can’t point a finger at anyone”.

As they came out of the lift, they received a boisterous welcome from some 20 or so other members of the Bezzina family, who had been waiting on tenterhooks.

“I think I’ll be avoiding lifts from now on,” he said.

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