On Sunday, life imitated art for Chicago Fire star Jesse Spencer when he was trapped inside an elevator at the Illinois State Capitol with a group of tourists.
The 35-year-old actor was touring the state capitol with his parents, who were visiting from Australia when he got stuck in an elevator for nearly 45 minutes. “People started to freak out,”Spencer told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It was packed. There were, like, 30 people in there. It was getting so hot. It’s claustrophobic. One poor girl had a fear of being trapped in elevators.”
Without any cell phone reception in the elevator shaft, the group used the elevator phone to call for help. Rather than calling 911, however, Spencer said the operator insisted on alerting the elevator mechanic.
“People were getting mad because admin wouldn’t call the fire department because it’s not protocol,” he said. “We’re like, ‘Oh thanks, that’s great. We’ll just wait here.’”
Spencer, who plays Lt. Matthew Casey on the NBC drama Chicago Fire, was wearing a baseball cap from the show that tourists mistook for an actual firefighter cap. The crowd in the elevator began looking to him for guidance. “That’s why I had to do something,” he said.
“Eventually I managed to get the doors open so we could get air in,” Spencer continued, admitting he pried the doors open with his own hands. “Once we got the doors opened it relieved the tension. I took turns getting people that were freaking out over near the door. I didn’t want them sticking their heads out in case the elevator took off again.” He also opened the fire access panel in the elevator in order to create a cross-breeze.
After being stuck for almost 30 minutes, one woman had a strong enough signal on her cell phone to call the Springfield Fire Department, and firefighters came about 10 minutes later. “We would have been stuck there for a long time if she hadn’t got reception,” Spencer said. Until firefighters arrived, the actor put his Chicago Fire skills to work and helped keep the group calm.
Firefighters told the Sun-Times that since it was a Sunday, had they not called the fire department, they could have been stuck in the elevator for a few hours. As a result of the incident, Illinois Secretary of State spokesman Dave Druker apologized for the inconvenience and said that the protocol of calling the building mechanic and not 911 first is being revised.
Once everyone was safely removed from the elevator, Spencer tweeted a picture of himself with the Springfield fire team:
Thanks Springfield FD saved us from an elevator at the Capitol Building. Stuck for an hour, I muscled the doors open pic.twitter.com/I1BA9GtLm4
— Jesse Spencer (@Jesse_Spencer) April 1, 2014