Stuck in an Elevator

You may recall the fun Lauren, Gigi, and I had being stuck in an elevator a few years ago.  While things had been a bit dicey for those 15 or so minutes, we were really very lucky. However, this past weekend A priest where my mother works lived one of my biggest fears- a scenario so scary I refused to lewt my mind wander to it that raining day in 2011. 

The 1st clue should have been when Fr. Mark didn’t return from 4:45 p.m. Mass at Iona College for supper yesterday evening.  But May 5 is the feast of the Christian Brothers’ founder Blessed Edmund Rice, and we figured the brothers were having a feastday dinner after the Mass and had invited Fr. Mark to join them (unusual, but possible).  And we didn’t worry about his absence any further.  The 2d clue came at 9:00 a.m. today the Ursulines called to say no one had shown up for Mass.  Fr. Mark was assigned, so I called his room and got no answer.  Since he’s accustomed to making us a fine breakfast on Sunday mornings, and there had been a fine breakfast prepared when I’d come downstairs at 7:45, I assumed he’d been up and then gone back to his room, sat down, and fell asleep.  Since his return on Wednesday evening from 10-day trip to Haiti he’d been pretty.  In retrospect, when he didn’t answer his phone, I should have asked the confreres to check on him instead of just rushing out celebrate the sisters’ Mass (for which I arrived 15 minutes late).  Directly after their Mass I went to my own assigned Mass at St. Vincent’s Hospital, arriving 10 minutes before the scheduled time.  I got home at 11:45, and still no one had seen Fr. Mark.  All the cars were home, so we knew he wasn’t out.  I went to his room, and he wasn’t there (and his bed was neatly made).  Most of us came for lunch at noon, and no one had any idea where he was, including Fr. Provincial.  So Fr. Ken Shaw went over to the mission office, fearing he might have gone to his office and something had happened to him.  Well, that was indeed the story—tho it wasn’t something as awful as we’d feared:  he was stuck in the elevator, and had been there since late yesterday afternoon.  Most of us had seen him in our kitchen preparing supper, and he was all prepared to celebrate Mass at Iona.  But he went to his office before leaving, got stuck in the elevator, and never got to Iona; and unlike the Ursulines the brothers didn’t call to tell us no one showed up.  He had no cell phone signal in the elevator, and if there was an emergency phone in it, it wasn’t working.  (Not good!)  So when Fr. Ken finally discovered poor Fr. Mark, he had to summon the NRFD to the rescue.  It took 5 of them 20 minutes to pry the doors open and “let the captive free.”  By then there was an audience of 4 SDBs on hand, able only to watch but at least reassured that Fr. Mark was fine—hungry and tired, but fine.

Who’d made that fine breakfast this morning?  Bro. Bernie.  For a few months we’ll have a long-term visitor in the community, Bro. Bernie Dubé.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH So scary, and while Father Mike (who wrote the email containing the above, seems to talk about it in jest, that poor man could have died and unthinkable thoughts have run through my mind about what must have gone down in those hours.