A pair of North Carolina newlyweds and members of their wedding party have a memorable story to tell after they had to be rescued from a hotel elevator.
Panav and Victoria Jha said they were celebrating after their Saturday ceremony when their elevator at the Grand Bohemian Hotel in Charlotte stopped between floors.
"We go up maybe five feet and then just stopped," Panav Jha told WBTV. "The door was slightly ajar, so I was like, 'Hmm, that's not normal.'"
The Charlotte Fire Department responded to the scene and soon discovered the situation was different from their usual elevator rescue calls.
"We went through all of the normal troubleshooting that you do on an elevator call and none of that was working, so that's when we realized we were going to elevate it to what it ended up being, what was a rope rescue," firefighter David Budd said.
The firefighters lowered a rope from the next floor up and had to rescue the bride, groom and wedding party one at a time.
"We put them in what's called a hasty seat. It's just a simple seat that hooks around them and we hook them up to our rope rigging system," firefighter Michael Claycomb said. "They get raised up from there and it's a simple process for them, at least. For us, it's a little complex."
The couple said they were freed from the elevator after about 2 1/2 hours.
"It was wild, but a crazy, fun, memorable experience that's one for the books," Victoria Jha said.