A person stuck in an elevator at Suburban Square got freed Thursday morning after volunteer firefighters from Ardmore's Merion Fire Company worked through a series of locked doors, a rooftop control room and a secured floor to reach them.

Station 25 crews responded to St. James Place at 4:44 a.m. on Thursday, according to an incident report written by Graham Fuller and posted on the fire company's website. The call came in as a routine elevator rescue, but the locked, unstaffed building turned it into a multi-step operation.

Because no one was on site at that hour, firefighters first had to force their way into the professional building. Once inside, they had to figure out which elevator had stalled and on what floor it had stopped. They climbed to the rooftop elevator control room, then breached a secured second floor before they could begin the actual rescue.

The fire company said crews "were able to work through each of these challenges, safely access the elevator, and successfully extricate the occupant."

All-volunteer crew

Every member of the Merion Fire Company is a volunteer. First-level firefighters in Lower Merion Township must complete at least 180 hours of training before qualifying for calls like Thursday's, and the township offers a full real estate tax rebate as a recruitment incentive. Forty-seven firefighters across the township met the threshold as of March 2026, according to township Commissioner Bernheim.

Not the first Suburban Square call this month

Station 25 also responded to a struck gas line at 60 Coulter Ave. in Suburban Square on Friday, July 17. Firefighters evacuated three stores and controlled the leak within one hour, according to the fire company's records.

The Merion Fire Company accepts volunteer applications year-round. Contact Station 25 at 610-642-9580 or visit merionfireco.org.