A 32-year old woman was injured on July 3, 2013, around 3:30 p.m., after she passed out on an escalator at the subway station at 125th Street and Broadway in Harlem, NY. The victim is reported to have suffered from an unspecified medical condition and was suspected to have suffered a seizure moments before losing consciousness. She then dropped to the still-moving steps, at which point her hair became entrapped between the steps, causing her to lose a significant amount of hair and possibly a portion of her scalp. A nearby police officer reportedly activated the emergency stop button shortly after, and FDNY emergency medical technicians were able to free the woman upon arrival. The victim also suffered cuts to her face, legs, and arms, and was transported to St. Luke’s Hospital for further treatment.
According to WABC 7 Eyewitness News, a 21-month old boy got his hand stuck between two steps in an escalator after he tripped and fell around 10:48a.m., Friday, February 22, 2013. The boy was riding with an adult on the escalator, located inside a Barnes & Noble bookstore at the corner of Broadway and 82nd Street when the incident occurred. According to an unnamed employee, the escalator automatically stopped shortly after the boy’s hand became entrapped. The boy was able to free himself shortly thereafter. Firefighters arrived and treated the boy at the scene for a hand laceration. Read the full story published February 22, 2013.
This young boy was incredibly fortunate in that the step-upthrust safety device apparently functioned as designed. The step-upthrust device automatically stops an escalator when an obstruction is detected in the lower-curve area, which would cause a step to be elevated higher than usual, which in turn would cause an impact with the comb plates at the bottom landing. Although the child did suffer a cut to his hand, his injuries might have been far more severe or even fatal if the escalator had continued to run while his hand was entrapped. This incident also highlights an important but basic elevator safety rule: always hold a child’s hand when riding an escalator. Never allow children to play around or run on escalators.
According to ABC 7 Eyewitness News, an 85 year-old man was left in critical condition after an elevator in his public housing apartment building crushed both his legs around 5 p.m. Sunday, December 30, 2012. Firefighters reported that when they arrived, the elevator was stuck between the first and second floor, with the man’s body inside the cab, and his legs dangling outside the cab on the first floor. Firefighters used air bags and other extrication methods to free the man’s legs and pull him up into the elevator cab. The victim was rushed to nearby Harlem Hospital where he was listed in critical condition, with both of his legs fractured. Read the full story by ABC 7 Eyewitness News, published December 31, 2012, and watch the video report below.
Interestingly, this is the third consecutive year in which a passenger was seriously injured or killed by an elevator in New York City that moved with the doors open during the month of December. On December 25, 2010, a woman was seriously injured at SUNY Downstate Medical Center when an elevator ascended unexpectedly while she was in the open doorway, and on December 14, 2011, Suzanne Hart was fatally crushed under similar circumstances. In both of those cases, an elevator mechanic was found to have used a wire jumper to bypass the elevator’s door interlock and gate switch safety circuits. Although there is no information yet as to what caused this incident, given that the firefighters described the man’s legs as “dangling outside” the elevator, it is very likely that the elevator moved while its doors were still open, and while the man was within the door threshold. It is not yet clear why the elevator would have moved while the doors were still open. The Department of Buildings will likely conduct an investigation and we will publish the results of that investigation when that information becomes available to us.
The New York City Housing Authority is notably the single largest operator of elevators in the City of New York, and is responsible for over 3,300 elevators in nearly 2,600 residential buildings, serving over 400,000 residents. The reliability of elevators in New York City’s public housing has long been a sore point with residents. A memorable New York Times article published March 12, 2005 famously opened with, “Up, up, up it rises, this elevator redolent of urine, groaning toward the rooftop of another tired building in the Queensbridge public housing development, the largest in Queens, in New York, in North America.” On June 12, 2012, the New York City Housing Authority reached a settlement with tenants in a class action lawsuit that alleged the Housing Authority let its fleet of elevators fall into “widespread disrepair and dysfunction.” The case is Brito v. New York City Housing Authority, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No 09-1621.
According to the New York Post, the superintendent at a building in Washington Heights was seriously injured Thursday, August 16, 2012 when he was struck in the head by an elevator counterweight. The victim, whose name was not immediately released, went in the pit around 8:40 a.m. in order to retrieve keys that a tenant had accidentally dropped through the gap between the floor sills. The elevator had apparently ascended to the sixth floor as the counterweight descended into the pit, striking the victim’s head. Read the full story by the New York Post.
A later article by DNAinfo.com New York reported that the building’s managing agent, Bronstein Properties LLC, identified the victim as Armando Bennett. Bronstein Properties’ spokesman Joe Masino noted, “I don’t allow my supers to go down the shaft, [they] should call the elevator company.”
If the spokeman’s statement is accurate, then it is not clear how the superintendent opened the hoistway door in order to gain access to the pit, unless it was a walk-in pit, which it does not appear to be given that the victim was describing as doing “down the shaft” to access the pit. Based on the media accounts of the accident, it appears that the victim may have entered the pit without first gaining control of the car, for example, via the stop switch in the pit. Assuming the superintendent entered the pit without gaining control of the car, and the door closed behind him, the elevator would resume automatic operation, for example, responding to the a sixth (top) floor call, which would have then sent the counterweight into the pit at full speed.
Possession of hoistway door keys is restricted by ASME A17.1 Rule 8.1.2, which covers Group 1, “Restricted” keys. Keys in Group 1 are restricted to elevator personnel only. Unfortunately it is all too common that unauthorized individuals obtain hoistway door keys. This accident serves as a reminder that an elevator hoistway is one of the most dangerous areas in a building, and only properly trained elevator personnel should ever access the hoistway. If an object falls into the pit, it is critical to wait for elevator personnel to retrieve the item to prevent injuries like this.
According to NBC New York, an 11-year old boy fell three floors down an elevator shaft around 12:30pm on Sunday, December 9, 2012. According to police, the victim and other young boys were playing in the building hallway when “the elevator doors unexpectedly opened and one of the boys fell in”. The condition of the boy was not immediately clear, but presumably the boy was hospitalized and sustained serious injury.
The description of the incident according to police and according to NBC New York indicates that the boy was rescued through the roof of the elevator car. Given that, the elevator doors could not have “unexpectedly opened” in the sense that the doors themselves opened. Rather, based on the description of the accident, involving boys playing in the hallway, it appears that the victim likely struck the door with force, causing the door gibbs to fail, causing the lower retaining door gibbs to break away, thus allowing the bottom of the hoistway door to swing open into the hoistway enough to allow the boy to fall into the open hoistway.
This is similar to the case in which a wheelchair-bound man in Korea crashed his motorized wheelchair into elevator doors, causing the door gibbs to fail, and causing the man to fall into the hoistway. Interestingly, Korea requires that hoistway doors bear a sign with a pictograph that depicts the hazard created by leaning on, or otherwise applying force to, hoistway doors. This appears to be a case in which the hoistway door was forced to bear excessive forces and ultimately failed, exposing a member of the public to the potentially fatal hazards of the hoistway.
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.
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.