Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert was among the “11 or 12" players stuck on a broken elevator at the team hotel in Dallas on Friday night.
Coach Jim Harbaugh said the players and some other members of the team traveling party, including Hall of Famer Dan Fouts’ wife, Jeri, were on the elevator without air conditioning for two hours. Dallas Fire-Rescue removed those on the elevator “one by one” through the ceiling panel to an adjacent elevator.
“We dodged a bullet,” Harbaugh said. “I usually think of dodging a bullet of dodging an injury in football. You’ve got to get good at that. You’ve got to get good at making yourself harder to break.
“That’s a shared experience that brought them closer together. I just missed it, being on that elevator. It was like, ‘Wish I could have been there with those guys.’ But Justin Herbert was.”
Harbaugh said every person who came off the elevator was sweating, except for Herbert, and some of the players had removed their shirts.
“Justin Herbert, his hair was a little wet, but his shirt was completely dry,” Harbaugh said. “That was another thing that blew me away. The guy is just a beast.”
Herbert took charge in the elevator, which was stuck in a “blind shaft” between the third and 15th floors of The Westin hotel in downtown Dallas.
“The remarkable things that came out of it was, to a guy, young rookie players, ‘Justin Herbert’s a leader. He was a rock. Kept everybody calm,’” Harbaugh said. “Jeri Fouts told me the same thing, pulled me aside after they got out, just how great Justin was. And everybody kept their poise.
“You get in those situations, and it’s a test of wills. I was proud of each of the guys and the two women that were on that elevator. That’s a win. You feel good about yourself. You were challenged. It was a test of will, and you pull it down, or pull it in. It was a camaraderie amongst that group that is even stronger than it was before.”
Harbaugh even used his family motto to describe the situation: “Who’s got it better than those guys that were on that elevator?!”
After all the occupants of the elevator were rescued, Harbaugh invited the members of the Dallas Fire-Rescue’s Urban Search and Rescue team to the team meal at the hotel.
“The Dallas Fire Department, take a deep, long bow,” Harbaugh said. “Without the Dallas Fire Department, could have been a lot worse. Could have been a lot more hours. Who knows how it would have ended.”