A person was trapped inside an elevator after an assisted living facility lost power Monday night, leaving dozens of residents without electricity for lights and medical equipment for nearly two hours.
Witnesses told News 4 they could hear the person trapped in the elevator yelling for help not long after the lights went out at the 19-story facility in Cliffside Park in an episode that left tenants and their families on edge.
“I checked all the floors and the elevator shaft because I heard screaming,” said Tony Pol, a resident and retired U.S. Marines sergeant.
Pol and other residents said that firefighters were able to free the tenant shortly after they arrived on scene.
But afterward, they waited with bated breath for power to be restored; one resident’s daughter said she decided to bring her 85-year-old mother home rather than risk another outage.
“She lives on the 19th floor, so she cannot even go upstairs,” she said. “All her medications are in her apartment.”
There were no injuries reported in the outage, authorities said. Power was restored to the building by about 8 p.m. Monday.
