10 minutes, 600 seconds

were lost from the lives of Bill Hill(photo credit-thanks Bill), Christa to my left, Florence with her eyes closed, half of Roberta to her left and of course myself when we found ourselves trapped in Box #1 of the One Wachovia Center. The elevators in this building take your command from the elevator lobby, you key in your floor then you are assigned an elevator to get into that will take you to your floor. Shortly after 1300hrs yesterday I was returning a bank deposit to Poyner with three still in the bag from the noon at Kennedy and was assigned #1. The doors opened, I was the last to get on thinking nothing strange other than that there were 4 floors lit, it seemed like I only ever remember a max of three stops, especially knowing that there was only 5 of us on board. The doors closed behind us and we lurched upwards towrds the Mall level then we instantly fell, dropping down past the Plaza and into the basement where we came to a springy stop. I think Roberta spoke first by saying, "I guess we should call someone." I was close to the call button which I hit and reported our situation with laughter in the background. Security said a technician was on the way and we will be let out shortly. Within about 6 minutes the doors opened a crack and I looked down and saw half of an elevator mechanic's mustache looking up at me from the bowels of the building. He asked if we were all okay and judging by the goofy smiles on our face we replied affirmative. This green jumpsuit wearing fellow said he was about to have us out in no time. Just as we were trying to decide if we needed to start eating our lunches I felt the box go up slightly, I think it was manually pulled up to the Plaza level and then the doors opened to the smiling faces of the rescue party. That was it, the not really harrowing experience was over and life went on. It was nice to meet you folks and finally put some names with some familiar faces.