Atlanta

Nightmare: 8 people trapped on elevator at Westin hotel for hours before rescue

The Atlanta Fire Department said eight people were trapped in an elevator at the Westin Peachtree Plaza for more than three hours Sunday evening.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Firefighters were called out to reports of people trapped around 5:45 p.m. The victims thought maybe they were stuck on the 14th floor. When the first units arrived on scene about ten minutes later, the elevator was not on the 14th floor. They were able to find the elevator stuck behind a blind shaft on the 27th floor.

TRENDING STORIES:

Firefighters reset the elevator, but it didn’t start to work again, so they called in an elevator technician to try to fix it. After the elevator technician couldn’t fix the elevator, additional units and fire chiefs were sent to the hotel.

A group of firefighters rode an elevator down to the stalled elevator and moved the hatch on top. Firefighters then put a ladder into the car and got people out two at a time by putting them on the roof of the working elevator car, then bringing them up to the 45th floor and having them get off there.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

The first two people were rescued from the elevator around 8:48 p.m. and the last two got out at 9:27 p.m. Workers are still working to repair the elevator.

No one was injured.