why does ^G sometimes not work?

[Samuel Wales]

I often use ido to complete outline paths in org.  It works well, but
sometimes it takes a very long time.  But ^G does not stop it.

The computer grinds to a slow.  top says that Emacs is taking half of
CPU and Safari is taking the other half.  So it's in a tight loop (and
so is some advertisement on Safari, probably).

I was hoping that ^G would stop anything that emacs does.

GNU Emacs 22.2.1
Carbon

Are there any signals I can send to make it stop without crashing?

Thanks.

-- 
Myalgic encephalomyelitis denialism is causing death (decades early;
Jason et al. 2006) and severe suffering (worse than nearly all other
diseases studied; e.g. Schweitzer et al. 1995) and *grossly*
corrupting science.
http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/What_Is_ME_What_Is_CFS.htm