I was working on a 30 story Gearless job with a secondary with grate flooring. One of the hoist ropes broke a strand and created a big ball on the hoist rope. As the car was traveling up, the balled up hoist rope hit the grate floor and broke the welds causing the 100 pound grate piece to just hang there by each corner. The slightest movement of the other grate pieces would cause the loose one to fall down the hoistway. At the same time the grate floor was hit the governor electrical tripped (probably by the jerk from the hoist rope hitting the floor ) causing the elevator to stop with a car full of people. I showed up and picked the door to get on top of the elevator to open the doors and let the people out, not knowing that this unstable grate floor piece is hanging over my head 10 stories up. Luckily, got the people out and everything was fine. But when I opened that secondary to reset the governor and saw that grate floor piece hanging there, talk about pucker factor 5.
We couldn't even walk in the secondary to rig the piece because the slightest movement would have let it loose. We had to fish a rope through it from the machine room floor and finally pulled it up.
