Seventeen Brooklyn straphangers were trapped in a stifling subway-station elevator for nearly an hour during the Monday morning rush, thanks to the do-nothing MTA, one of the riders told The Post.
Talia Kovacs said she was among those crammed in the hot lift at the Clark Street station when it lurched to a halt around 10 a.m.
“People were feeling upset but powerless — which is the story of New Yorkers and the subway,” Kovacs said.
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When the riders called the MTA to report they were stuck, they got the brush-off, she said.
“We called them, and they were like, ‘Oh, we don’t know — we’re working on some other stuff right now,’ ” Kovacs said.
The agency said it would call back but never did, she said.
At first, riders kept their cool by “chatting about the elevators and other subway horror stories,” but people started freaking out as the temperature rose and their prospects of escape seemed to diminish, according to Kovacs.
Some of those trapped began to cry openly, and an elderly woman who couldn’t speak English complained of health problems, she said.
“We were using Google Translate to talk to her. She ended up seeing EMTs afterward,” Kovacs said.
Firefighters arrived to help, but no one warned the riders that rescuers were coming, so they freaked out when a Bravest pounded on their elevator car roof because they thought it was another MTA ceiling collapse, the straphanger said, referring to past structural problems at stations.
“About 45 to 50 minutes [into the ordeal], we started hearing just a lot of banging. Some folks were crying — but then a lot more people started crying and panicking. It felt like the ceiling was caving in. We didn’t know what was going on,” Kovacs said.
“But then this very friendly firefighter pops through the ceiling and was like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna get you guys out.’ ”
That was around 10:45 a.m., according to time-stamped tweets by Kovacs.
Fire officials say they got a call at 10:08 a.m., arrived by 10:11 a.m. and had everyone out by 11:02 a.m. There were no injuries, officials said.
An MTA elevator crew was servicing the adjacent elevator when the incident occurred and responded “immediately,” according to spokeswoman Amanda Kwan.
“An elevator maintenance crew immediately responded to reports of customers in this elevator,” she said without elaborating.
“FDNY also responded and helped 17 customers exit the elevator safely. We sincerely apologize to those customers who were impacted and thank FDNY for their assistance,” Kwan said.
The lift, which has been in service for 87 years, works 98.7 percent of the time and is slated to be replaced under the MTA’s capital plan, which runs through 2019, officials said.
Additional reporting by Gina Daidone
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