Sitting in a broken down elevator looking for help, Brian Wood could not understand why the person at the end of the emergency phone had never head of Gibbons Company.

Mr. Wood and his wife, who have been coming to Bermuda for more than 20 years, had been shopping when they got into the elevator in the Gibbons store on Reid Street, along with six other people.

But what should have been a short ride turned into a stifling experience when the elevator stopped, trapping them between floors around 12.30 p.m. on December 19.

And to make matters worse, the emergency number they used to report their situation was to an operator in the US.

In an e-mail to The Royal Gazette, Mr. Wood wrote several calls were made on the intercom — which is connected to Otis Elevator headquarters in the US. Eventually they explained they were not located anywhere in the US and were actually stuck in an elevator approximately 640 miles off North Carolina.

When an engineer finally arrived to help those trapped, he scolded the elevator passengers.

“Eventually an engineer arrived on the elevator roof to immediately berate us for easing a couple of polystyrene panels in order to get some air into the now stifling atmosphere — not the best reaction to our plight,” Mr. Wood noted in his e-mail.

But Tom Unsinn, manager of the Otis Elevator Company in Bermuda, said that the engineer may simply have been stressed by the situation and not intended any offence.

Mr. Unsinn said that the best thing for people stuck in an elevator to do is to stay put.

“It is the safest place,” he said. “They should not try and get out because it can make it more difficult for the mechanic who is trying to get to them.

“Obviously we try and treat everyone with courtesy and respect.”

Mr. Unsinn said many of the company’s elevators connect to a 24-hour dispatching service in Connecticut.

The elevator’s location is normally automatically uploaded immediately to the dispatcher’s screen, he explained. But when the building’s owners change phone providers, situations like this one will occur.

“The information has now been updated in all the Gibbons Company elevators, including the colour of the buildings. So, it should not happen again.”

A Gibbons Company spokesperson said that all of the elevators have since been checked.

The elevator incident was not enough to turn long-time visitor Mr. Wood off the Island, however.