Home Forums General Discussion Safety Talk NYC Elevator Death

Does anyone have any info on this? For an Elevator to run downwards with with the doors open, it has to be a problem that is readily identifiable to any competent Elevator Mechanic. Was this a Hydraulic, or a Generator with a malfunctioning Suicide circuit? Any info would be appreciated. As a QEI Inspector I see some bad things and try to address them for the using public. The article I read was there was an up and down light issue, which is not germane to running with the doors open.

John, We may never know what happened. In only a hand full of deaths and even fewer injury cases does the cause of the accident ever come out. Cases are settled out of court for undisclosed amounts of money and the families agree to keep quiet as to the cause of the death or to the amount of money they receive. If the building elevators are maintained by smaller independent companies you may hear more information about the cause of the death. But if a major is involved a lot of the time the name of the company is not even mentioned! As the inventor of the Timeout Jumper a device intended to keep jumpers that have been left behind defeating safety devices from hurting elevator men or the riding public. It is especially painful to hear about people hurt or killed from those types of accidents when my product has been available to the elevator community since 2007. I'm not saying that this death was caused by a jumper but whenever a traction car runs down as the story I saw on You Tube suggested then that would normally tell you it was under power vs a overhaul of the weights. If we do not hear exactly what happened how can we train and teach others to not make the same mistakes? If this was any other form of public transportation this would never be allowed.

Amen Brother, I was hoping some rank and file readers of this forum could give us some insight.