Nine people spent an uncomfortable 90 minutes inside a malfunctioning elevator Friday evening.
It happened at the Cook County Administration Building at 69 W. Washington St. when the county workers were leaving for the day.
The elevator car became stuck between the first and second floor.
"Once we got down to the first floor, we saw the No. 1 inside the elevator ... the door wouldn't open," Sheila Atkins said.
Atkins said the group had constant communication with security officials, and spent the next hour and a half getting to know each other.
"Everybody was calm and professional. We shared gum, played games on our phone, people introduced themselves, found out where we lived and chatted," Atkins said.
With many firefighters battling the extra-alarm blaze at a North Side strip mall, emergency crews were dispatched from O'Hare, along with elevator mechanics.
The building where the incident happened is the same scene of a deadly fire that took the lives of six people 10 years ago. But Atkins said that wasn't something they were thinking about at all.
None of the nine people aboard the elevator were hurt in the ordeal,
It's still unclear why the elevator became stuck in the first place.
