Posted on: May 14, 2026, 12:44h.
Last updated on: May 14, 2026, 12:55h.
- Seventeen tourists were trapped for around an hour in a Rio Las Vegas elevator that dropped at least a foot before coming to a halt below the lobby
- Passengers, including a pregnant woman and an individual having a panic attack, eventually called the fire department themselves after claiming that the hotel failed to initiate an emergency response
- The video went viral following an Inside Edition report
A group of 17 tourists did not get the kind of elevated experience Las Vegas had promised them earlier this month. Instead, they got stuck in a Rio elevator after it dropped at least a foot below the lobby. While no one was injured by the drop, according to Melissa Elcio, the group was trapped “for over an hour,” with the elevator growing hotter as time passed.
“No airflow,” the nurse from Airzona wrote in her Instagram post of May 3, 2026. “We had to crack the door open just to breathe.”
Elicio’s clip initially drew little attention but exploded after TV’s Inside Edition spotted it and ran a story on Thursday, May 13.
“At first, it was really inconvenient, and then it became pretty scary,” Elicio told the syndicated tabloid news program. “It stopped, and then, a second later, it dropped, probably two to three feet. It was very jostling.”
Elicio also claimed the hotel showed “no urgency” in responding and that the group — including a pregnant woman and an individual having a panic attack — had to call the fire department themselves.
“We were told (by security) that the fire department was called,” Elicio told Inside Edition. “So we called the fire department for an ETA, and they said, ‘We’ve never been contacted from the hotel yet.’”
According to Inside Edition, the group was stuck for 55 minutes.
Casino.org reached out to the Rio’s representatives for comment and will update this story if one is received.
Tourist Trap
Elicio’s video begins by panning across the tightly packed elevator as passengers — all dressed for an evening on the Strip — shout suggestions and repeatedly ring the alarm bell. It then cuts to Las Vegas Fire & Rescue forcing the doors open from the Rio lobby. Because the elevator came to a stop roughly a foot below the landing, firefighters helped each person step up to safety.
“Watch your head,” one firefighter says, since the top of the elevator opening was now about a foot lower than normal. “No one’s hurt yet, but if you guys get crazy, then somebody’s gonna get hurt.”
After the group was rescued, Elicio claimed, she saw that “multiple other elevators in the hotel were also down.”
“Situations happen, but this felt like a much bigger issue than just one elevator,” she wrote.
The Rio — a Caesars‑built off‑Strip resort now operated by Dreamscape Companies — has been undergoing a multiyear renovation, including room upgrades and casino‑floor improvements.
Reaction online was predictably brutal. Most of the 112 comments under X-based news source Las Vegas Locally’s May 14th repost — which earned over 145,000 views — mocked the struggling Rio’s long-running reputation for maintenance issues.
One user, @genefuss, delivered by far the harshest jab: “There were 17 people at Rio at one time?”
