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I read a fascinating and well-written article about 10 years ago about a woman (a lawyer iirc) who stepped into an elevator in a New York office building late o
by deepspace 6y ago
I read a fascinating and well-written article about 10 years ago about a woman (a lawyer iirc) who stepped into an elevator in a New York office building late one evening. Halfway down, the elevator got stuck due to a warped frame, and then suddenly dropped several floors from the weight of the still-unwinding cable.
The elevator then proceeded down to the lobby, but the woman was severely injured. The building was deserted so it took her a long time to get medical help, and afterwards people would not believe her since nobody else witnessed the accident.
Wish I could find the article gain. It reminded me that there are many badly maintained elevators out there and the fact that more of them are not involved in accidents is a testament to their redundant design.
To this day I am wary of stepping into an elevator in an old/sketchy building.
- d13 6y agoI thought all elevators had a kind of mechanical fail safe brake that automatically engages if they start to fall too fast?
- Doxin 6y agoThey do, but those are mostly intended in case somehow all the lift cables snap/detach/disappear. In that case the elevator would drop, the brakes would engage and slow the elevator down to a stop. In the story told you can easily imagine the elevator dropping and getting caught by the cables in a time frame shorter than what you'd need for the brakes to stop the elevator. A drop of just a foot could easily cause plenty of injuries. EDIT: I should also mention that the mechanism I described above should not be confused with the overspeed governor which is located in the penthouse and wouldn't notice anything at all if the lift cage gets stuck.