According to the Siloam Springs Herald Leader, “A 50-year-old man was dropped three stories when the passenger elevator he was riding inside the Simmons Feed Mill in Decatur failed Friday morning.”
Read the full story (subscription required) by Janelle Jessen, Published Wednesday, November 28, 2012
According to the Press of Atlantic City, an Englishman allegedly dangled 40 feet in the air after his clothing became caught in an escalator at the Revel Resort and Hotel on August 24, 2012. A lawsuit seeking $75,000 in damages alleges that the victim, Mr. Christopher Eades, who was a guest at the time of the incident, was standing near the escalator on the second floor when part of his clothing became caught in the ascending handrail. The lawsuit goes on to say the victim “was suddenly and precipitously pulled over the railing of the area in which he was then and there standing.” Bystanders eventually rescued the victim, who was then treated for a fractured left leg and knee, in addition to other minor injuries. Court records indicate that the case has been referred to arbitration, and a representative of the resort, which is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, declined to comment.
The victim’s lawyer was quoted as saying “Revel resort features a huge atrium called the Ellipse which features a soaring double escalator intended to dramatically, as if in mid-air, whisk the clientele from the lobby floor to a mezzanine platform. These soaring escalators were intended as a fantasy aerial lift, which seemed to defy the laws of physics but have turned out, in reality, to have failed its ambitious purpose, becoming instead, a dangerous mechanism for physical injury.” Read the full story published March 28, 2013.
This incident re-iterates the importance of paying careful attention when riding on and standing near moving equipment such as escalators and moving walks. Generally, there are no safety devices which would stop the escalator in the event that fabric became entrapped in the handrail. Escalator handrails generally provide a good amount of friction because they are intended to be gripped by riders. However, because they often exhibit such high friction, they can entrap clothing or body parts.
In addition, the subject escalators in this incident have been noted by observers for their unusually high landings. The escalators referenced in this article criss-cross an open atrium up to a height of over 120 feet. Interestingly, the balustrade (handrail) heights on the escalators are at least six inches lower than the balustrades at the landing, which is an unusual inconsistency between typical building codes and elevator codes.
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.
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.
According to the Daily Record, “Violet Roberts suffered two broken wrists, a gash to her right leg and a spinal fracture” after “a woman apparently pressed the stop button on the moving stairs on December 10, 2009.”
Interestingly, the woman that was accused of pressing the emergency stop button was charged but acquitted after Ms. Roberts failed to identify the alleged perpetrator, despite the fact that the entire incident was apparently caught on CCTV camera, and despite that the alleged perpetrator’s own mother identified her daughter in the video. According to the article, Ms. Roberts “still suffers pain and discomfort every day as a result of the incident at the city’s Waverley Station three years ago.”
Read the full story by Jack Mathieson, published December 4, 2012. The Daily Record published a second story on December 5, 2012, which basically contained the same facts as the first.