Elevator falls five storeys

[MMMike]

`A lot of people were screaming'
Ambulances can't fit into University Ave. office tower garage
Jan. 28, 2006. 07:44 AM
PHINJO GOMBU AND SURYA BHATTACHARYA
STAFF REPORTERS


A routine trip down the elevator to a parking garage that would have started the weekend instead turned into a terrifying ordeal for five people when their elevator plunged five levels and hit the bottom floor.

The rare fall occurred around 4.50 p.m. yesterday at the National Life building on University Ave. and Elm St.

The building houses the Ontario head office of Industrial Alliance, a Quebec-based financial services and life insurance company.

The three men and two women inside the hydraulic elevator were taken to nearby Mount Sinai Hospital and St. Michael's Hospital with serious compression fractures and broken legs and ankles, emergency officials said.

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[NickFun]

RE: Elevator falls five s

I hate when that happens!

 

[FiveParadox]

Elevator Scare

Wow! :?

I hope those involved recover promptly.

I also hope there is an investigation into what caused the error, and what steps could be taken to improve the integrity of elevators in general, in order to prevent such things from happening in the future.

 

[BCRick]

RE: Elevator falls five s

To my knowledge there are a minimum 4 cables on each elevator cab, each able to support the full loaded weight of the cab. For all four to break there has been serious maintenance deficiencies or sabotage. The counter weight of an elevator over-balances the full load capacity of the cab so that even if the brakes failed and the failsafe drive was not working the cab would fall up, not down.

 

[I think not]

8O

I had a scare once in midtown manhattan, apparently one of the cables broke or something and the elevator plunged about ten stories down before the breaks kicked in. I was young at the time and considered it an andrenaline rush. :roll: