It is a classic horror scenario for every dog owner. Dog Sam stayed on a lease in a lift in Enkhuizen on Monday morning, while owner Rini was already outside the elevator. She had to watch how the lift doors closed and the elevator went down. Half an hour later the dog was released two floors lower by the fire brigade.
While the protagonist – a cross between a Maltese and a Shih Tzu – lies relaxed a few hours after the elevator drama, his owner tells her story with vibrating hands. “The shock is still good. If your dog is stuck in the elevator and you don’t know how he is doing, minutes seem to take hours.”
Back to Monday morning, when Rini is careful about her 2 year old grandson. They left Sam and get into the lift and get out again.
‘See the lift closing’
“I was busy with my grandson and the stroller. We were already outside the elevator, when I thought:” Sam is still in it. “I look around and see the elevator door closing.”
And because her grandson has pressed a button, the elevator – inexorably – makes the corridor down. Rini then has the pulley of the 5 -meter -long flexible belt. “It was pulled all the way down.”
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A horror scenario: the leashed Sam goes down two floors, while the wire is sprouting. Until the lift suddenly stops. “The thread of the belt apparently passed a sensor, so it stopped. 50 centimeters before the end.”
The lift has stopped, but the panic then prevails at Rini. “All scenarios shoot through your head. How are him still alive? We still heard him squeaking, but did not know how he was like.”
‘Hung against the roof of the elevator’
The excited fire brigade arrives on the spot and can free Sam from his plight. “He hung against the roof of the elevator, pulled up by the rope,” says Rini.
“When the door opened again, I saw him hanging like that. Fortunately it ended well. He was very lucky that the harness was in front of his waist. Dogs with a neck band were stitched in this situation.”
The unfortunate Sam is unharmed. He makes a relaxed impression in his troubled environment. “It’s a dry though,” says Rini. “We regularly fly with him and then he is always calm. The most important thing is that he is not wrong. Tonight I will go to the trimmer with him.”
Rini draws her lessons after the perilous lift adventure. “From now on I am already taking the belt off and he will go loose in the elevator. Although I am not going with the lift for the time being. I will take the stairs.”