Wouldn't hurt to try, I guess, and Lord knows I'm not going to tell you how to spend the last ten seconds of your life. But the chances of it working are pretty slim. Let's suppose your elevator is falling downwards at 40 miles per hour, or nearly 60 feet per second. Now suppose you jump up at the last moment. How fast do you think you're going to go? Forty miles per hour? Fat chance.
Let's be generous and say you could jump up at 10 miles per hour. Forty miles an hour DOWN minus 10 miles per hour UP leaves you going 30 miles per hour down. In short, no matter what you do, you're going to come out of this looking like a pizza.
But don't get too alarmed. There isn't just one elevator cable holding you up, there are several--often five or six. Any one cable could support the weight of the entire elevator. If by some evil miracle all the cables did snap, the elevator also is equipped with brakes that would grab the sides of the shaft. If the brakes failed too, some elevators have giant springs at the bottom. So maybe you'd just bounce.
If that didn't work--well, pal, they'll be scraping you off the floor with a putty knife. But look on the bright side. At least you won't have to make a lot of stops on the way down.
Copyright 1993 Chicago Reader
