An elderly man was left panicked and trapped inside a car park lift in Dundee city centre for more than an hour.
James Watt has blasted the operating company’s emergency response after he was forced to make four calls for help.
“It isn’t an acceptable length of time to wait trapped in this tiny box,” said the pensioner.
Mr Watt, 79, was visiting the city from his home in Forfar when the incident happened in the council-run Gellatly Street car park on Saturday morning.
He parked his car and stepped into the elevator on the fifth floor — only for the 1.5sq m metal box to shudder and stop almost immediately.
The retired engineer spent 15 minutes trying everything to get the lift to restart and resorted to banging and shouting to alert any passersby.
When nobody came, he pressed the emergency call button and was told by a lift engineer he would have to wait for at least 50 minutes to be freed.
Mr Watt said: “I was an unpleasant experience. I’m a little bit claustrophobic but like most people, I definitely don’t like being stuck in a tiny metal square for over an hour.
“I ended up speaking to the operator four times. My hearing isn’t great and I thought he said it would be 15 minutes — I couldn’t believe it when I was still stuck there all this time later.
“A worker at the car park and the engineer were stood there when I eventually got out. I turned to the parking attendant and told him there’s no chance I’m paying — I just wanted to get the hell out of there.”
The car park, located just off the Seagate, is run by Dundee City Council.
Mr Watt said: “If the parking attendant in the building had at least come to reassure me that would have been a big difference.
“It’s concerning and I worry now about what would happen if someone else with a serious health problem was to be stuck in there without help for that long.
“It isn’t an acceptable length of time to wait trapped in this tiny box.”
Mr Watt’s wife Laura had been waiting for him to pick her up in Newport and had no idea where he was.
“It sounds horrible. He was a little shaken up when he eventually arrived, as I would have been too,” she said.
“Nobody should have to wait that long for someone to help.”
A spokesperson for Dundee City Council said: “We would like to apologise to Mr Watt and reassure him and other car park users that we act as quickly as possible in circumstances like these.”
An engineer from lift manufacturer Kone arrived to free Mr Watt.
A spokesperson said: “We are aware of the case and we are sorry as we know that being trapped in a lift can be a very frustrating experience. The lift in question is not maintained by KONE but we were contacted and attended to release the trapped man.”
