Category Archives: Elevators

Manhattan, NY – Suzanne Hart fatally crushed in freak elevator accident

by peter | 1 Comment

According to multiple sources, 41-year old ad executive Suzanne Hart was killed around 10 a.m. on Wednesday, December 14, 2011, while she boarded an elevator on the ground floor at 285 Madison Avenue when the elevator moved up suddenly while the doors were still open, crushing her, and causing the elevator to become stuck between the first and second floors. Two witnesses were inside the elevator when the incident occurred and were subsequently treated for psychological trauma. Read the full initial report by the Wall Street Journal.

The New York City Department of Buildings investigated the incident and concluded that elevator mechanics had used wire jumpers to bypass the elevator’s door interlock circuits, allowing the elevator to move with its doors open. Read the full story by WABC7 Eyewitness News and watch their video report below.

It is difficult to understate how dangerous it is to bypass an elevator’s door interlocks with a wire jumper, and this case is proof that fatal accidents can, and will, occur when wire jumpers are used improperly. This case is eerily reminiscent to another accident that occurred in New York City nearly a year prior, on Christmas Day, December 25, 2010, at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, in which a woman was seriously injured while boarding an elevator when the elevator moved suddenly with the doors open. In both cases, a mechanic used a wire jumper without a helper or a barricade to protect the riding public.

Long Beach, CA – Woman killed trying to escape stuck elevator at CSULB

by peter | Leave a comment

According to the Daily 49er, the campus newspaper at Cal State University Long Beach, Annette Lujan, 47, of Huntington Beach, California, was killed around 9 a.m. Tuesday while trying to escape a stuck elevator. Lujan was on her way to work at the Office of University Research in the Foundation Building when the elevator became stuck between floors. Lujan apparently attempted to pry the doors open and climb up to the next floor to escape, when the elevator suddenly and unexpectedly moved down, crushing her. According to police, a bystander was attempting to help Lujan out of the elevator when the accident occurred. Read the full story by the Daily 49er, published December 6, 2011, as well as a follow-up by the Daily 49er, published January 22, 2012.

According to KNBC Los Angeles, an investigation by California OSHA determined that “misjudgment” was the primary cause of the accident. The four-page report noted that elevator was built in 1994, and was extensively tested by engineers after the incident, but they were “unable to determine the causal factors and their findings were inconclusive.” A section of the report titled “human factor,” cited “misjudgment of hazardous situation” as a major factor contributing to Ms. Lujan’s death. According to the report, the moment before the fatal accident occurred, the elevator car door opened about one foot below the third floor of the building, while the elevator continued to move downward slowly. The sole witness, a student worker, said she tried to help Lujan crawl out of the elevator when it crushed her, catching her neck and shoulders. Read the full story by KNBC Los Angeles, published June 26, 2012, or watch the video below.

View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

Although elevator malfunctions and entrapments are uncommon, they are often extremely stressful for passengers that become entrapped. However, it is critical that trapped passengers call for help and wait patiently to be rescued by properly trained elevator personnel. Never try to pry the doors open if the elevator stops unexpectedly. Many newer elevators are equipped with “door restrictors,” devices which prevent passengers from opening the elevator doors when the car is not at a landing. Although door restrictors are required by current elevator code, they were not required in 1994.

Although elevators are designed not to run with the doors open, there are limited circumstances in which an elevator may move with the doors open, such as leveling, brake failure, or loss of hydraulic pressure. In these cases, for example, it is possible that the elevator was within the “door zone” defined by code to be approximately one foot above and below a floor, which is close enough to a landing to allow the elevator to move with the doors open. In the event an elevator’s doors open unexpectedly when the car is not at a landing, never try to climb or jump out of the elevator. Stand away from the doors and wait to be rescued by elevator personnel. Always assume that the elevator may move again unexpectedly if it has already malfunctioned. Until the malfunctioning cab has been secured by elevator personnel, there is no way to be sure the elevator is safe to exit.

Phoenix, AZ – Woman injured after hotel elevator fell three stories

by peter | Leave a comment

According to ABC15.com and CBS 5 Arizona, a Phoenix woman broke her right ankle, and possibly her left ankle as well, when the elevator she entered dropped three floors at a high speed. The fire department report noted that the victim entered the elevator on the third floor, and as soon as she activated the second floor cab call, she heard a loud noise and then the elevator dropped. The cause of the incident remained unknown. Read the full story by ABC15.com, published December 4, 2011, and the full story by CBS 5 Arizona, published December 4, 2011, and a follow-up posted December 5, 2011. Also check out the video below by ABC15.com, posted on YouTube December 4, 2011.

Based on media reports and the accounts of eyewitnesses and emergency officials, it would seem that the elevator likely experienced a hydraulic system failure. The loud noise heard before the incident may have been a catastrophic failure of a hydraulic piping, fitting, or valve. With a loss of hydraulic containment, the elevator fell as the hydraulic plunger lost supporting pressure.

According to records obtained by ElevatorAccident.net from the City of Phoenix, the incident elevator was a three-story Otis hydraulic elevator with a 2500 lb., 16 passenger capacity and a rated speed of 115 feet per minute. The applicable code year was either 1978 or 1984, although it could not conclusively be determined from the records alone. In either case, a hydraulic elevator of this vintage would not have been required to have a plunger gripper. According to the ASME A17.1a-2002, Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators, a plunger gripper is “a mechanical device attached to a supporting structure in the pit, which stops and holds the car by gripping the plunger.” The basic function of a plunger gripper is to prevent these type of falling cab incidents in hydraulic elevators. Had a plunger gripper been required on this elevator, the victim in this case likely would not have been injured.

Brooklyn, NY – Woman dragged 8 floors, leg mangled by hospital elevator

by peter | 1 Comment

According to the New York Daily News, an elevator accident occurred at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY, on Christmas Day, causing one woman’s leg to be horribly mangled. Firefighters that responded to the incident reported that the woman’s leg was trapped in the narrow gap between the elevator cab and the door sill. Firefighters cut power to the elevator and used clamps to secure the elevator car, before determining that a gas-powered cutting saw was needed to cut through the steel frame of the cab and the concrete eighth floor door sill. The woman was apparently visiting a sick relative at the hospital with her daughter, who witnessed the harrowing event. Read the full story by the Daily News, published December 25, 2010.

A comprehensive investigation into the circumstances leading to this incident determined that a mechanic for contractor Al-An Elevator, Jason Jordan (no relation), had used a wire jumper to bypass the elevator’s door interlock and gate switch circuits. The King’s County District Attorney’s office secured a felony assault indictment against the mechanic because he allegedly “fled the hospital without saying a word or offering help” after discovering that his actions had led to the victim’s injuries. Read the full story by the New York Times, published December 15, 2011.

At least a portion of the injury event was caught on surveillance video and was released to the media. The video, courtesy of ElevatorExpert.net and published by the New York Daily News, which does not include narration, first depicts a high-definition re-creation of the elevator’s movement with the doors open. Next is actual surveillance video of the injury to Ms. Jordan, which frighteningly depicts her casually stepping on to the elevator when it shoots up unexpectedly with the doors still open as her daughter looks on in horror, gazing into the dark, open hoistway where her mother was just standing a moment prior. Bystanders and hospital employees, even on different floors, all apparently heard Ms. Jordan’s screams as she was dragged up the hoistway, and rushed to her aid. However, the video then depicts the accused elevator mechanic walking down the stairs from the elevator motor room, gazing on the woman, still trapped at the 8th floor landing, then leaving the hospital post-haste, moments before dozens of firefighters arrived on the scene. The end of the video depicts some still photos of the aftermath of the rescue, depicting the gruesome amount of force required to extricate Ms. Jordan from the narrow space between the elevator cab and the door sill, which normally measures less than one inch in width. The final moments of the video depict a forensic re-creation of the injury event as it moves up at high speed with its doors will open.

This case was also the the subject of an episode of a CBS six-part mini-series titled “Brooklyn DA” which aired on June 29, 2013. The show depicts Kings County ADA Lawrence Oh as he works to investigate the accident and prosecute the mechanic.

Bronx, NY – Man moving mattress falls down freight elevator shaft

by peter | Leave a comment

According to ABC 7 Eyewitness News New York, Joseph Ryan, a 35 year-old man died around 11 p.m. Monday after plunging two stories down a freight elevator shaft in an apartment building located on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx. The man was moving into a new apartment and was apparently walking backwards and carrying a mattress at the lobby level when the incident occurred. The man fell down to the basement level and suffered injuries that he succumbed to after being transported to nearby St. Barnabas Hospital. Early accounts of the accident described that the door was open but the elevator was not at the floor at the time the incident occurred. Tenants in the building noted that the freight elevator was shut down every night and that only building maintenance workers and security guards had access to the elevator.

Interestingly, the article noted that although the victim was not working at the time, he worked for a private elevator contractor during the day. The New York City Department of Buildings investigated the accident and determined that the victim had apparently used a drop key to open the hoistway door and gain access to the elevator for at least one prior trip on the elevator. The Department of Buildings also issued a violation for an apparently malfunctioning mechanical door interlock on the incident elevator. The Eyewitness News report also noted that the Department of Buildings had received a number of tenant complaints about the elevators prior to the incident including one that noted “no one uses [the elevator because] they are afraid.”

Read the full story by ABC 7 New York, published March 2, 2010, or watch the videos below.