For Amanda Carpenter, getting trapped in an elevator was a nightmare. 
 
 Back in February, the former communication director for Sen. Ted Cruz found herself in an unfavorable situation: she was trapped in an Amtrak elevator at Baltimore–Washington International Airport. 
 
 In an attempt to free herself from the commuter prison, Carpenter tweeted to her 90,000+ followers asking for help. 
 
 Guys. I'm trapped in an amtrak elevator at Bwi airport. Help? — Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) February 14, 2016 
 
 To make matters worse, the elevator's certificate of compliance was well past its expiration date. 
 
 Here is the notice showing inspection expiration for the elevator I was trapped inside. Thx Amtrak pic.twitter.com/BkTKciOki5 — Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) February 14, 2016 
 
 On Wednesday, nearly seven months later, Amtrak came to Carpenter's rescue and responded to her original tweet, asking if she was still trapped inside the elevator. 
 
 @amandacarpenter We are sorry to hear that. Are you still in the elevator? — Amtrak (@Amtrak) September 7, 2016 
 
 Amtrak later cleared up the confusion by stating that someone had recently re-tweeted the call for help, which put it back on its radar. 
 
 While social media slip-ups from brands are the norm on Twitter, Amtrak's failure to notice how much time had passed was a breath of fresh air. It was an honest mistake that anyone could have made. 
 
 @amandacarpenter Someone just re-tweeted it. Wanted to make sure. Glad you're out :) — Amtrak (@Amtrak) September 7, 2016 
 
 @amandacarpenter We're happy to have you aboard. — Amtrak (@Amtrak) September 7, 2016 
 
 After the tweet gained some attention, Amtrak attempted to remedy the situation by offering Carpenter a free ride on its Acela service. 
 
 @amandacarpenter Not our finest hour yesterday. We'd love to offer you an Acela ride on us for the inconvenience back in February. — Amtrak (@Amtrak) September 8, 2016 
 
 After all, Amtrak actually did respond to Carpenter's original tweet back in February, only 16 minutes after she originally reached out. 
 
 @amandacarpenter BWI agents are aware of you, and are working to get you out. — Amtrak (@Amtrak) February 14, 2016 
 
 Regardless, the damage was done and the internet was highly amused. 
 
 [h/t:Vocativ] ||||| A woman who was escorted off an Amtrak train by police last weekend after she allegedly refused to stop talking loudly on her cell-phone has the Internet cheering her fate. 
 
 Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause that she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers. 
 
 KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of the train's designated quiet cars. She had not stopped talking since the train pulled out of Oakland, California, 16 hours before it reached Salem, Oregon, when a passenger confronted her about the talking. That's when Beard got "aggressive," KATU reports, and conductors stopped the train so that police could remove her and charge her with disorderly conduct. 
 
 Amtrak created quiet cars in 2001 when a group of passengers who rode the Philadelphia to D.C. route every morning asked if they could reserve a car where cell-phone loudmouths weren't welcome. Ever since, the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts. Gawker suggested, not without a dose of sincerity, that the cops who removed Beard from the train were heroes, and that Beard should be charged with "unspeakable crimes against humanity and sentenced to life on some distant planet where there are no reception bars, ever." 
 
 According to a very scientific reader poll at The Huffington Post, 77 percent of people were happy the woman was hauled off the train. And CNN personality Anderson Cooper blasted the woman on his "ridiculist" last night, asking "What could someone possibly talk about for 16 hours?" He even compared being stuck on the train with a person who would do such a thing to the "fifth circle of hell." 
 
 The Internet is full of tales of innocent people's quiet-car journeys being marred by loud passengers who ignore the rules. An Israeli blogger with a PhD in conflict resolution wrote a lengthy post about the best way to get a fellow passenger to shut up without starting World War III. "Always assume the transgressor is ignorant, not arrogant. This way you won't feel wronged and can communicate your message with less contempt and hostility," he suggests. 
 
 Meanwhile writer Christopher Buckley, a self-described quiet car Nazi, wonders why there would be any confusion as to the correct behavior in that part of the train: "The Quiet Car does not hide its light under a bushel. Prominent and explicit signs hang from the ceiling at five-foot intervals. They declare, unequivocally, that NO CELL PHONES ARE PERMITTED and that conversation must be kept to a minimum and in hushed tones." 
 
 In a video taken of Beard's removal from the train, she appears to be quietly cooperating with the officers. You can watch, below: 
 
 (Screenshot of Beard: YouTube.)
– Amtrak is taking its lumps after a Twitter misfire. In response to a woman's tweet about being stuck in an Amtrak elevator at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Amtrak tweeted on Wednesday, "We are sorry to hear that. Are you still in the elevator?" Well, no. Amanda Carpenter's plea for help had actually gone out seven months earlier, and Amtrak failed to notice the elapsed time. Carpenter, who is Ted Cruz's former communications director, responded, "Oh, my thank you for this but I was trapped months ago. Like last February. Thanks for checking...? Ha." The gaffe has brought all kinds of ridicule and memes down upon Amtrak, as rounded up by Mashable. "Not our finest hour," acknowledged the company in a followup tweet. It seems that Carpenter's original tweet resurfaced all these months later because somebody retweeted it for some reason, and whoever responded on behalf of Amtrak simply didn't see the date. In fairness to the company, it responded to the original tweet just 16 minutes after Carpenter sent the request for help, telling her that "BWI agents are aware of you, and are working to get you out." Amtrak has now offered Carpenter a free train ride over the mess, but that didn't stop Twitter users from poking fun at what one guy calls "the worst customer service response time ever." Another used a gif of a skeleton holding a telephone.