The six people were rescued by a doctor who used his presence of mind to help them, as seen in this video grab

The BMC should consider itself lucky that when the power at a civic hospital went out suddenly and trapped six people in an elevator, one of those was not a patient in need of immediate attention. In an egregious episode that highlights the mismanagement of BMC-funded civic hospitals, at 10 am yesterday, when Sant Muktabai Municipal Hospital lost its power supply, neither did the mandatory back-up kick in, nor did anybody apart from a few doctors, nurses or Class 4 employees attempt to help the six people — including three children and two women — trapped in the elevator for over 40 minutes. Surprisingly, even the fire brigade was not called in to aid the rescue; and there was no electrician on call to tackle the situation, despite claims to the contrary by the hospital. Instead, the supervisor tried to pass the buck and shift blame on Reliance, the power supplier.