By CY Ming
It would be a most harrowing experience for anyone to be trapped inside a lift for an hour, what more for an elderly couple, age 70 and 74, for more than 25 hours.
After getting stuck in a lift at the Mydin Meru Shopping Mall in Ipoh at 11.30am last Friday, they must have feared they would remain trapped throughout the long holiday break.
Fortunately, the couple’s daughter went searching for them at the mall the next day, and spotted her father’s car in the parking lot, and could hear her father’s voice calling out from inside the lift.
A rescue team from the Fire and Rescue Department freed the couple at 1pm. They were so traumatised that they refused to say anything to the police or reporters later.
A spokesman from Mydin Meru said “The branch cannot give any statement at the moment. Our headquarters in Kuala Lumpur is investigating this matter”.
The first thing they could have done was to engage professional counsellors to approach the couple to offer therapy. Admitting guilt may breach terms and conditions of Mydin’s liability insurance, but an apology and a generous hamper would have shown its sincerity.
The victim’s family have rightfully engaged a lawyer to file for damages.
But it is still shocking that standard operating procedures, if any, were not followed, resulting in the couple trapped inside the lift for so long without raising suspicion.
It is a given that all lifts are equipped with an alarm, allowing those trapped inside to activate a piercing sound that could be heard from a distance.
If lifts in Mydin Meru Shopping Mall were not equipped with an alarm or were not working, the whole mall should have been shut down for inspection and not just the lifts.
It is also an opportune time for the Fire and Rescue Department to conduct a thorough inspection of the mall to make sure all safety requirements are in place.
It would be most embarrassing for the department if another safety mishap were to occur.
CY Ming is an FMT reader.
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