Woman tries to leave a parking garage for jury duty. Then she looks at the exit doors and realizes she has to call the police: ‘I’m literally trapped’
First order of jury duty: escape the parking garage.
A woman heading to jury duty encountered a problem before she ever made it to the courthouse. Taking to social media, she told her followers that she was trapped between chained doors and an elevator that was not accessible from her floor.
In a TikTok documenting the ordeal, Melody showed what appeared to be chained doors. Taking the elevator didn’t solve the problem, either, as she said it wouldn’t return to the floor where she was trapped. “I’m literally trapped and the police are on their way,” she said. “I don’t know how I get into these situations, bro.”
The exits were chained, and the elevator wasn’t helping
The woman said she was in a parking garage near the Hudson River Walk when she became trapped. Her video showed chains around doors she apparently tried to use as exits. She also demonstrated that pressing the elevator button didn’t appear to bring it back to her floor.
Getting unexpectedly trapped somewhere isn’t exactly unprecedented. One woman recently found herself locked inside a doctor’s office. Another individual became trapped on an airport train in Houston at 3 a.m. The TikToker eventually made it out, although she didn’t explain in the two videos exactly how she escaped or how long she was trapped.
She still wants to know whether the problem was fixed
In a follow-up video, the woman said she was no longer in Albany and asked local viewers to find out whether someone could still become trapped in the parking garage. She shared that nobody had contacted her to confirm whether anything had changed.
Her concern about the chained doors also raises questions about emergency access. New York’s fire code generally requires doors serving as a means of egress to be readily operable from the egress side without a key, effort, or special knowledge. However, the TikTok videos alone don’t establish whether the chained doors were designated exits or whether the garage violated any safety requirements.
The woman was nevertheless worried about what could happen if someone became trapped during an emergency. “I don’t want anyone to die in a fire, obviously,” she said.
Given that the TikTok user expressed concern over fire hazards, it’s worth noting that incident data compiled by Digital Firehouse shows that the city’s fire department responded to 233 fire calls in 2024.
She asked Albany viewers to investigate whether the elevator and chained doors were still an issue, while repeatedly warning them not to trap themselves in the process. “Please don’t get stuck,” she said. “I repeat, do not get stuck.” She capped off her update by requesting anyone who checked the garage to post a video so others could find out whether the apparent problem had been addressed.
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