‘I was trapped’: Nearly 100 people needed to be rescued from Toronto elevators during heat wave

Tenants in a North Toronto apartment tower have been without one elevator for months, and then lost the other one in the middle of a record heat wave.

Nearly 100 people needed rescuing from Toronto elevators that broke down or got stuck during the city’s recent record-breaking heat wave, according to figures provided to CTV News by Toronto Fire Services.

The rising temperatures, humidity, and sometimes power outages were all factors in the 96 rescues in three days – more than triple the usual call volume – as critics also wonder if weaknesses in provincial elevator regulations played a role.

“In the heat wave, you have moisture. These are mechanical units. They’re often very safe, but sometimes they stop in the heat, and we respond,” said Toronto Fire Services Division Command Paul O’Brien in an interview.

Residents of a north Toronto building at 45 Driftwood Ave. told CTV News they believe they’re responsible for a disproportionate number of those responses.

One of the two elevators in the 14-storey building hasn’t worked for about five months due to a fire. The other went down a few days ago, tenants said.

“During the heat wave three days ago, I was trapped in the elevator. I was there for 32 minutes before the fire department came to take me down,” said Ola Adekolu, who lives on the seventh floor. She needs the elevator as her knees are so arthritic.

“We were sweating like crazy, four of us in the elevator,” she said.

Another tenant, Marcia Walker, said when she uses the elevator, she is wary, wondering if she’ll have to jump out at any time.

“I was lucky that it’s only one time that I’ve been stuck in the elevator, but there are other times that it seems like the elevator wanted to get me stuck, and so what I did is I go like this,” she said, gesturing as if she was pulling the door open.

“I push the door open, and I run,” she said.

Element Elevators, the company responsible for elevator maintenance at the building on Driftwood, told CTV News that the elevator has likely been on the fritz because of an unusual control system that was designed in Ontario but whose designers have since passed away.

“They are few and far between. Limited tech support and no documentation whatsoever to guide us,” said Bogdan Rus, the company’s vice president of operations. “It’s a tricky situation,” he said.

As for the other elevator, it was damaged in the fire, and he’s waiting for the owners, Terrace Wood Apartments, to work through insurance complications related to the fire. An entirely new elevator system can cost between $200,000 and $300,000, he said.

Rus said he was able to fix one elevator a few hours after CTV News visited on Friday. He shared some videos of the control room and the functioning system.

Terrace Woods Apartments does wish to fix the other elevator but is hamstrung to some extent as the fire that damaged the elevator began in the unit of a tenant who didn’t have insurance, said Ravi Sivalingam, the owner’s representative.

“We are genuinely empathetic to the situation, and we don’t want to frustrate our tenants, but our hands are tied as to what the elevator company can do to get the parts to restore the second elevator,” he said.

The area’s MPP, Tom Rakocevic, said he believes this situation is indicative of a failure of a provincial inspection regime that was called out in a provincial auditor-general’s report in 2018.

“It’s been seven years since, and it’s happening not just here but across the city,” Rakocevic said.

Ontario’s elevator watchdog, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority, said owners of residential elevators are required to report outages that last more than 48 hours. Those figures show an increase from 28 a month in June 2022- May 2023 to 29 a month in 2023-2024 and 34 a month in 2024-2025.

“As reporting requirements are only a few years old, it’s not clear if there are more outages or the reporting has improved. Also, please note that these numbers do not account for any increases in the total number of residential elevators installed in the province,” wrote TSSA spokesperson Alexandra Campbell.

O’Brien said elevators are generally safe, and if you are stuck in one, stay calm and don’t try to escape, which can lead to a much more dangerous situation, he said.

“Do not try and self-rescue,” he said. “There’s usually a bell or a phone system, and they’re usually monitored by a security officer on scene. Just remain calm. If you’re feeling a little hot in there, sit down, we will get to you,” he said.