3 Mayors Walk Into an Elevator, Get Stuck

Doors wouldn't open, cell phones had no signal
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 22, 2016 9:31 AM CDT
3 Mayors Walk Into an Elevator, Get Stuck
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto posing with two paramedics in Pittsburgh. Peduto got stuck in the Westin Hotel elevator Thursday along with the mayors of Millvale and Leetsdale. It wasn't clear how they'd get out because none of the mayors, and others stuck along with them, could get cellphone service.   (Uncredited)

Three mayors walk into an elevator—but what happened next was no joke, reports the AP, though the officials managed to amuse themselves until they could be rescued about 40 minutes later. Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto got stuck in the Westin Hotel elevator Thursday evening along with the mayors of Pennsylvania towns of Millvale and Leetsdale. They had been attending a meeting of the Allegheny League of Municipalities. At first, it wasn't clear how they'd get out because none of the mayors, and others stuck along with them, could get cellphone service. "It was very hot and humid and sweaty, but we survived," Millville Mayor Vincent Cinski tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

"We had a great discussion of everything from Twitter and the fact that we couldn't get any connection to our phones, to the development in the city of Pittsburgh and the suburbs," says a rep for the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, who was also stranded. The fifth stranded elevator rider was luckily a hotel worker who was able to summon maintenance crews and first responders using a walkie-talkie. And while the mayors couldn't call for help, they did manage to use their phones to take a selfie. (More elevator stories.)

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