Auckland woman trapped in lift for 14 hours still seeking answers

Caroline Campbell spent 14 hours stuck in a lift. Photo / Supplied

An Auckland woman who was trapped in a lift for 14 hours is still waiting for answers more than a year after the incident.

Caroline Campbell, 56, alleged Guardian Self Storage was negligent last year after she became trapped in one of the North Shore company's lifts last February.

She was freed by emergency services the next morning, after spending 14 hours in the lift without food or water, after a passer-by heard her yelling for help.

She spent her time in the lift "drawing pictures and writing poems", her sister told the Herald at the time of the incident, but Campbell claims she has since suffered from anxiety and lack of sleep.

Campbell's lawyer Keith Young sent a legal letter to lawyers for the storage company and the lift maintenance engineer alleging negligence last August.

The engineer's lawyers deny any negligence and said he was not responsible for installation, workmanship or components.

Campbell told the Herald she was frustrated as the legal parties continued working towards a mediation.

"We will be looking at a court date if the parties involved can't come to a mediation."

She said she wanted a settlement and admission of responsibility from the company.

"There is the sense that I'm not being taken seriously ... they're not taking any sense of ownership or responsibility," she said.

There also continued to be "certain circumstances" in which she is wary of entering a lift by herself.

"A few months ago I didn't feel good about using a lift in a public carpark. It was dark, late at night and I knew that no one would be around."

She said she no longer has a storage unit with the company.

Guardian Self Storage general manager Terry King told the Herald at the time he was shocked at the incident.

"The lift basically just stopped. We own five facilities and four have got lifts in them and what would usually happen is that there is an alarm system and you push a button if the lift stops.

"It goes through to a security company and the security company come and obviously override the system and get you out.

"In this case for some reason the alarm hasn't gone through to the security company so no one has actually known that [Campbell] was in the lift until someone found her."