Woman Dies in Elevator Malfunction in New York Office Building
A tragic malfunction in an elevator in Midtown Manhattan has left one woman dead and a city in shock. On the morning of December 14, 2011, 41 year-old Suzanne Hart was entering the elevator on the way to her job at an advertising firm at 285 Madison Avenue. While she had one foot in the elevator, it suddenly lurched upward, dragging her with it. The elevator stopped between the first and second floors, with her trapped between the elevator and the wall. Two other passengers in the elevator were unhurt but trapped there for an hour. Rescuers pronounced Hart dead at the scene, but could not remove her body for several more hours.
No definitive explanation for what happened has appeared yet. Some sort of electrical malfunction may be the most likely culprit, but the incident has had a profound impact on a city dependent on elevators. According to the New York Times, New York City has over 60,000 elevators. There were fifty-three accidents involving elevators last year, but only three were fatal. Hart’s death turned a mundane, everyday activity into something terrifying. Other daily activities, such as driving a car, have known risks and well-publicized dangers, but an elevator ride seems to hold a particular resonance for many people.
The city’s Department of Buildings is conducting an investigation of the incident. The building has remained closed since the day of the accident, but is expected to reopen in January 2012. A spokesperson for the Department said that the accident had raised “structural concerns” for the entire building, an indicator of the force of the elevator’s movement. Transel Elevator, Inc., which services elevators all over the city and acknowledges doing electrical maintenance work on that particular elevator several hours before the accident, is a focus of the investigation. The biggest mystery for investigators, according to CBS News, is why all of the elevator’s safeguards seem to have failed at once. Elevators have safety mechanisms that should prevent them from moving while the doors are open. These mechanisms have several backups, but none of them worked that morning.
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Jack D. Lebowitz
Vadim A. Mzhen
