<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Couple trapped in Marina Barrage lift for an hour
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Ang Yiying
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->IT WAS to have been a romantic evening to mark their 16th wedding anniversary, but a couple found themselves stuck in a bubble lift at the Marina Barrage at the end of the night.
Mr and Mrs David Tan, both 40, were set free, unharmed, about an hour later.
The couple had had dinner on Saturday and then gone to the rooftop garden of the Marina Barrage to take in the city skyline. They were leaving the place in the lift at about 12.15am when it stalled.
Mr Tan, an IT operations director, pressed the lift's emergency buzzer, but as there was no emergency number or intercom, his wife called the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
First on the scene were the Barrage's security guard and a technical officer, who told the Tans that they had called the lift contractor.
A team of SCDF officers and paramedics were there in 10 minutes, but decided to wait for the lift contractor. The couple said they were told that the lift doors could not be pried open without approval from the police and the building management.
Mrs Tan said the police were then called in.
And so began a nearly half-hour wait for the contractor, who got the doors open within five minutes.
Mrs Tan, a civil servant, said she was frustrated about the red tape and the waste of time and resources.
'The help was there but it could not be executed,' she said.
An SCDF spokesman said waiting for the lift technician to free the couple was a 'better and safer' option because, had the doors been forcibly opened, the lift mechanism would have been damaged, and the rescue work, complicated.
The doors would have been pried open only as a last resort, he added.
Moreover, SCDF officers had checked that the couple were not in danger and that the lift's ventilation system was still working.
Mr Tan said that since the Barrage was open till late, the management should ensure that all required personnel were on hand to 'act quickly' when needed.
PUB, the national water agency managing the Barrage, said it takes a serious view of the matter and that it would like to apologise to the couple for the inconvenience. It said it will review its procedures, including posting an emergency contact number in the lift for use in case of breakdowns and improving the response time.
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Ang Yiying
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->IT WAS to have been a romantic evening to mark their 16th wedding anniversary, but a couple found themselves stuck in a bubble lift at the Marina Barrage at the end of the night.
Mr and Mrs David Tan, both 40, were set free, unharmed, about an hour later.
The couple had had dinner on Saturday and then gone to the rooftop garden of the Marina Barrage to take in the city skyline. They were leaving the place in the lift at about 12.15am when it stalled.
Mr Tan, an IT operations director, pressed the lift's emergency buzzer, but as there was no emergency number or intercom, his wife called the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).
First on the scene were the Barrage's security guard and a technical officer, who told the Tans that they had called the lift contractor.
A team of SCDF officers and paramedics were there in 10 minutes, but decided to wait for the lift contractor. The couple said they were told that the lift doors could not be pried open without approval from the police and the building management.
Mrs Tan said the police were then called in.
And so began a nearly half-hour wait for the contractor, who got the doors open within five minutes.
Mrs Tan, a civil servant, said she was frustrated about the red tape and the waste of time and resources.
'The help was there but it could not be executed,' she said.
An SCDF spokesman said waiting for the lift technician to free the couple was a 'better and safer' option because, had the doors been forcibly opened, the lift mechanism would have been damaged, and the rescue work, complicated.
The doors would have been pried open only as a last resort, he added.
Moreover, SCDF officers had checked that the couple were not in danger and that the lift's ventilation system was still working.
Mr Tan said that since the Barrage was open till late, the management should ensure that all required personnel were on hand to 'act quickly' when needed.
PUB, the national water agency managing the Barrage, said it takes a serious view of the matter and that it would like to apologise to the couple for the inconvenience. It said it will review its procedures, including posting an emergency contact number in the lift for use in case of breakdowns and improving the response time.
cicil servant getting a taste of the efficiency of the CIVIL SERVICE...what a joke!! red tape!!! ha ha ha ha ha ha
