A 44-year old Indian man delivering liquid propane gas died Tuesday, November 5, 2013, around 12:30 p.m. local time, when he was fatally crushed by an elevator in an apartment building in Devara Jeevana Halli, Bangalore, India. According to early reports, the man had completed his delivery on the ground floor, and was on his way to the building’s first floor to collect payment. When he registered a hall call, the elevator doors apparently opened without the cab present. The victim apparently stepped through the opening, falling into the pit, where he was then crushed when the elevator descended seconds later to answer his hall call. Witnesses stated that they observed a significant amount of blood and were only able to see the victim’s hands, and used crowbars in an attempt to lift the cab off the victim. Local police are investigating the circumstances of the accident and had not yet released a formal statement, but noted that it appeared to be a malfunction and not foul play. The official statement also noted that they would investigate whether the elevator manufacturer, Lenzi Elevators India, was criminally negligent.
Typically, modern passenger elevators in the United States use a combination of an elevator car door and hoistway doors at each floor. A door operator mounted on top of the elevator car then opens the hoistway doors when the cab arrives. In such an arrangement, the hoistway doors will remain closed until the cab is lined up with that floor, allowing the door operator to open the hoistway door, which should never open to an empty shaft. However, even in the United States, there are often freight elevator door arrangements in which each floor has an independent door operator. In that case, a malfunction could potentially lead to an open shaft. In this case, it is not clear what the circumstances were. However, in India, “swing door” arrangements that resemble a typical building door are still relatively common, so it is also possible that this case involved a swing door with an independent hoistway door operator. We will update this story if additional information becomes available.
Shajo Sh. S., a 33-year-old Indian elevator mechanic working on an elevator in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, died around 1 p.m. local time Saturday, November 2, 2013, after an elevator cab he was working on fell unexpectedly. The victim was apparently performing routine maintenance on an elevator in a residential building in the Al Butaina neighborhood, cleaning the inside of the hoistway doors at each floor. When the elevator cab was around the third floor, it suddenly fell, causing the victim to become pinned between the hoistway wall and the cab.
Early reports indicate that authorities were not notified for at least 40 minutes after the accident occurred. During that time, the victim’s co-workers were apparently attempting to extricate him. By the time authorities arrived, the victim was already deceased. Sharjah Police released a statement urging the immediate reporting of industrial accidents to allow officials to carry out rescue and recovery operations and hopefully prevent future loss of life in similar situations.
A 45-year-old elevator mechanic from Mesquite, Texas, died after falling approximately 20-feet into an open hoistway at the parking garage of 1515 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas, around 8 p.m. Friday, November 1, 2013. The elevator technician, whose name was not yet released by authorities, was apparently servicing equipment in a mechanical room adjacent to the open shaft when he fell. The Dallas Fire Department urban search and rescue team was dispatched to recover the victim, who was declared dead on arrival by the responding paramedics. A spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department said they did not know what caused him to fall, but indicated that it appeared to be an accident, and that Dallas homicide detectives and OSHA were investigating.
Michael “Dewayne” Atkins, 41, of Russelville, Alabama, died in an elevator accident that occurred Wednesday, October 30, 2013, around 6:45p.m. at Decatur Morgan Hospital, in Decatur, Alabama. Atkins was a maintenance worker at the hospital and was apparently attempting to repair a freight elevator at the loading dock on the Decatur General campus when the elevator moved down unexpectedly, pinning him between the floor and the bottom of the elevator, fatally crushing him. Early reports did not indicate any factors that might have contributed to the accident. The Alabama Department of Forensic Science will perform an autopsy, and officials with the Alabama Department of Labor are investigating.
Two-way radio communications obtained by ElevatorAccident.net indicated that first responders waited nearly two hours for elevator personnel to arrive to move the cab and extricate the victim, however the coroner had already pronounced the victim dead upon arrival. An official with the Alabama Department of Labor Inspections Division did not provide a comment regarding the circumstances of the incident, but confirmed that a license issued by the Department of Labor is required for personnel that repair or maintain elevators.
It was not clear from any early reports exactly what Mr. Atkins was repairing or why he would have been repairing the elevator in the first place. There was no indication at the time of writing that Mr. Atkins possessed an elevator-related license or had otherwise received training that would qualify him as “elevator personnel” in accordance with the ASME A17.1, “Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators.” An initial investigation by the Alabama Department of Labor indicated that the hoistway door interlock at the level the incident occurred may have been bypassed.
Elevator fatalities involving passengers are exceptionally rare, however, since the victim in this case was apparently attempting to affect a repair on the elevator, he had apparently entered the elevator hoistway, where he was subjected to hazards to which the riding public would normally not be exposed.
A 60-year old grandmother died Friday, June 21, 2013, after a runaway shopping cart struck her at high speed while she was riding an inclined moving walkway at the Lianhua supermarket in the Jiading district of Shanghai, China. Surveillance video of the incident depicts the victim calmly disembarking the moving walk and turning around in the split second before the runaway shopping cart struck her fatally, suggesting that the victim heard the cart careening out of control, even though it was too late for her to get out of the cart’s path. According to the report by STOMP, a Singapore news agency, the runaway cart belonged to two men who had loaded it with 15 crates of drinks, estimated to have weighed 330 pounds (150kg), who boarded the moving walkway moments before losing control of the cart. The victim was reportedly thrown almost 20 feet (6 meters) from the point of impact. She was transported to a nearby hospital but succumbed to her injuries. Local police are investigating the incident.
While somewhat uncommon in the United States, inclined moving walkways are often used in airports and supermarkets to transport people between floors with the capacity of an escalator and the convenience of an elevator (namely, that people can take along their suitcase, shopping cart, or baby carriage). Typically, the carts at locations with inclined moving walks will remain under control using an automatic brake that is applied when the cart handle is released, or via strong magnets in the cart wheels that stay adhered to the ramp surface. However in this case, the recklessness of the two patrons to use their own cart, which they also overloaded, apparently led to this woman’s untimely death.
Also of note is that the surveillance video depicts that the moving walks in this incident were continuously sloped. In the United States, moving walkway treadways are limited to inclines of 12 degrees at any point, and 3 degrees within 3 feet of the landing. Had the slope tapered at the bottom landing, it might have provided the victim an additional split second to avoid the careening cart. However, clearly in this case the reckless loading of an unsafe cart appears to be the prevailing causative factor.
On Tuesday, June 11, 2013, around 6:45 a.m., seasoned elevator mechanic Donald White, 63, a 43-year industry veteran, was struck and killed by a counterweight while working on a ladder in an elevator pit. The elevator was being constructed by Schindler at the San Francisco 49ers’ new stadium, Levi’s Stadium, a $1.3 billion project expected to be completed in 2014. Cal/OSHA is investigating the accident and expects to have a completed report in approximately six months. It was not immediately clear what caused the counterweight to move while Mr. White was in the pit. This is the first major incident reported so far during the stadium’s construction.
Elevator accidents involving counterweights generally involve elevator personnel, as in this case, although we have documented at least two other recent cases involving non-elevator personnel that entered the elevator pit to clean the pit and to retrieve dropped keys. Besides counterweight collisions in the pit, elevator mechanics and inspectors can be struck by the counterweight as the car and the counterweight pass each other halfway up the hoistway. Working with a ladder in a pit is especially dangerous as it will reduce or eliminate available refuge space while also potentially introducing a foreign object into that space.
Mark Allen Johnson, 45, of Greater Northdale, Florida, was fatally crushed around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 24, 2013, while working to remove oil and water from the pit of a hydraulic elevator at the TradeWinds Resort Hotel in Saint Petersburg Beach, Florida. Mr. Johnson was working with a co-worker for SWS Environmental Services, a company that specializes in spill response, in response to an elevator inspection two days prior that noted excessive fluid in the pit. St. Petersburg Beach Fire Chief Ernie Hand described Johnson as apparently standing halfway between the ground floor landing and the interior of the elevator shaft when the elevator descended on top of him, crushing him. An eyewitness stated that she had just exited an adjacent elevator when she saw the elevator car suddenly drop “a couple of feet” onto Johnson. The other employee for SWS, who was not in the pit at the time, was not injured. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and OSHA are investigating the incident.
Cristen Rensel, of the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office, stated that “The elevator had been locked with a key by maintenance of the TradeWinds,” and that Johnson and his co-worker “had been working for about 40 minutes” prior to the incident. Based on that statement, it is not clear that proper lockout procedures were followed. Generally, building owners do not employ their own staff of elevator personnel, hiring elevator contractors instead. The maintenance staff of the TradeWinds may not have received proper training on elevator maintenance and lockout procedures. From the perspective of building maintenance staff, “locking out” an elevator may mean a variety of things, for example, placing an elevator on independent service, which would prevent the elevator from responding to hall calls, but is not intended for use when working under or on top of an elevator car. None of the reports mentioned that the elevator’s pit stop switch or main line disconnect switch were opened to prevent movement of the elevator. Furthermore, it is not clear whether Mr. Johnson or his co-worker had ever received any training specific to elevator maintenance that would have qualified them as “elevator personnel” in accordance with the standards set forth in ASME A17.1, “Safety Code for Elevators and Escalators”. The website for SWS Environmental Services describes a variety of services they provide but makes no mention of the word “elevator”. The A17.1 limits access to elevator pits to elevator personnel only. Furthermore, the A17.1 restricts hoistway door unlocking devices to elevator personnel only; it is not clear who unlocked the hoistway door nearest the pit while the elevator was above the landing.
Assuming that either the pit stop switch or the main line disconnect switch had actually been opened in accordance with appropriate safety procedures, another possibility is that the elevator’s hydraulic system had failed, possibly due to bad valves or seals, leading to a relief of the pressure in the hydraulic jack and causing the elevator to descend unexpectedly. The code year of the elevator was not reported in any of the source articles noted below, but generally older hydraulic elevators were not required to be equipped with “plunger grippers” which would retard or stop the unexpected movement of the elevator in the event of a hydraulic system failure.
UPDATE (April 26, 2013): A follow-up report from the Tampa Bay Times corroborates our earlier speculation that none of the individuals involved were trained elevator personnel. Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation spokeswoman Sandi Copes Poreda released an email stating that Johnson was not a certified elevator technician and added, “Anyone working inside the elevator or hoistway must either be a Certified Elevator Technician or under the direct supervision of a Certificate of Competency holder. We do not know whether the other worker on site was licensed.” Lt. Joel Granata of St. Petersburg Beach Fire and Rescue added that the elevator’s main line disconnect switch was not locked out when first responders arrived in response to reports of the accident.
The State of Florida sent elevator inspector Frank Matuszewski to examine the elevator in response to the incident. Mr. Matuszewski noted 13 violations, mostly minor, but notably including a “leak in the muffler”. In the context of electric hydraulic elevators, the “muffler” is not what a layman might expect. Hydraulic pumps may not run perfectly, imparting pressure pulsations within the hydraulic fluid, which can cause noise and vibration inside the elevator. These pulses can also cause resonant vibration in adjoining machinery, causing additional vibration and noise in the elevator. A hydraulic muffler is used to reduce such vibrations.
The story was widely reported by local media. Video reports of the story are included below.
Chad Wolfe, a 31-year-old auto mechanic from West Newtown, Pennsylvania, was found dead around 3 a.m. on March 15, 2013, after he apparently fell down an elevator hoistway at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida. Initial reports noted that the victim was intoxicated and behaving erratically, including climbing on a tree in the airport lobby, moments before the accident occurred. The medical examiner’s report noted that the victim had an “oil-like substance” on his hands, and that the investigating detective noted that it appeared the victim “forced open [the] elevator door to gain entry into the elevator shaft.”
Initial reports noted that the hoistway door interlock on the elevator had been “compromised” and that it “had been tampered with” but added that there was no indication that the interlock had malfunctioned prior to the incident. The elevator had passed its most recent inspection before the accident.
This case serves as an unfortunate reminder that the general public should never try to access an elevator hoistway for any reason. The hoistway door interlock, like any other mechanical or electronic device, can be damaged by abuse or vandalism, leading to failures, which can result in unfortunate situations like this where a passenger was able to pry the doors open with their bare hands. Hoistway doors should remain fully closed and locked any time the elevator is not present at that landing. An open hoistway should always be treated as an imminently dangerous fatal hazard.
According to the Huffington Post, a man was crushed by an elevator in San Francisco’s BART subway station on Monday, March 11, 2013. The circumstances surrounding the incident remain somewhat unclear, but the report indicates that a passenger boarded the elevator and registered a cab call in the up direction before hearing “a crunching sound and a man yelp.” The elevator then stopped with that passenger entrapped. The entrapped passenger called for help, and after being successfully rescued, authorities searched the hoistway and found the victim, who was immediately pronounced dead.
Strangely, BART Police Lieutenant John Conneely indicated that “the man may have been sleeping atop the elevator” but that it was unclear how he entered the hoistway or how long he had been inside. Conneely also indicated that personal belongings were found on the car top, but it was not certain that they belonged to the victim. Read the full story published March 11, 2013.
It is unclear if the elevator had a manually operable “run/stop” switch, however, it is unlikely that it would have made a difference in this case, since the only indication that an accident had occurred was when the entrapped passenger heard the victim being crushed.
This highly unusual incident demonstrates that an elevator hoistway is perhaps the most dangerous place a person can be. No one should ever enter the hoistway besides elevator personnel and emergency personnel that have been trained to safely access these spaces. Also in this case, the entrapped passenger responded correctly by waiting for help.
According to Indian news agency DNA (Daily News & Analysis, an 18 year-old girl was crushed to death Wednesday, January 9, 2013, after she entered the hoistway, apparently to sweep the pit. The report is somewhat unusual in that it specifically describes that the motor of the “old lift” somehow crashed down on top of her, fatally crushing her. The victim died at the scene. An employee at the building who was not named described the building as “dilapidated”. A comment on that article also notes that there may have been other similar incidents at that location. Read the full story, published January 10, 2013.
Incidents like this highlight why it is important that access to elevator pits, hoistways, and machine spaces is restricted to elevator personnel only. It is not yet clear how the victim was able to access the pit, however, the original news report indicates that it was apparently part of her “sweeping duty” to sweep the pit. In the United States, building maintenance and housekeeping staff are generally prohibited by code from entering these restricted spaces. Cleaning of the pit should be part of the maintenance control program followed by the elevator contractor during periodic preventive maintenance visits.