Charles
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Elevator Data
News articles, cases and authoritative commentary on elevator accidents or their construction.
Upkeep goes undone
The Boston Globe
Sunday, December 4, 1994
By David Armstrong and Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff
The elevator car in the 39-story building at 28 State St. in downtown Boston was falling so fast that, as Patricia Herne said later, "it was like my life was flashing in front of me." Then, as abruptly as it began, the speeding elevator came to a violent stop when a safety brake kicked in -- but not until the elevator had plummeted 12 stories, she said in a lawsuit.
The sudden stop sent the 23-year-old Herne sprawling to the floor, where she waited an hour for someone to rescue her. She says that ligaments and muscle tissue in her back were torn. "It's everybody's worst nightmare," the Newton resident said of the 1991 accident. "It was like a never-ending fall."
The Delta Elevator Co. of Boston, which was responsible for maintaining the elevator, confirmed that the car's safety brake activated, but said Herne was mistaken that the elevator fell 12 stories. The company says it fell just one floor. But Herne's lawyer, James Ronan of Boston, said the accident was the result of a common, but little-discussed problem in the industry: faulty equipment and bad maintenance.
"In my opinion, almost all the time there's an elevator accident in a building that has had recurrent elevator problems, you've got a situation where the elevator company skimps by not having routine maintenance or replacing parts," he said.
Ronan's charge is supported by information contained in a Globe review of several hundred elevator accidents and the records of state elevator inspectors. The records run counter to the elevator industry's contention that the bulk of accidents are the result of careless or unsafe riders. In the past five years, Massachusetts inspectors have shut down 1,268 elevators and escalators that were so dangerous they had to be taken out of service immediately.
One state inspector, George Flynn, said that in the past two years, he has found 100 "governors" and "safeties," the ultimate braking devices on elevators, that do not work.
"That is your last resort," said Flynn. "If they fail, there is no stopping the car."
"The people who get on elevators assume they are safe and that someone is maintaining and inspecting them," said J.A. Marchack, president of National Elevator Inspection Service of St. Louis. "But when you have the public on them, you don't know what is going to happen."
Flynn blames increasingly shoddy maintenance as the main safety threat to elevator riders.
Experts say competition for maintenance contracts is so intense that many companies bid far below what it will cost them to do the work, and then skimp on services after they win the contract.
Elevator accident kills worker in Leominster
THURSDAY, July 11, 1996
By Zachary R. Dowdy and David Armstrong, Globe Staff
A 42-year-old Leominster man plunged several stories to his death yesterday when he was pulled into the shaft of an elevator that was not authorized for use, police said.
Dennis R. Beauvais -- an employee of the building's owner, Whitney Carriage -- died of massive head and neck injuries suffered after his hand became stuck in a freight elevator at 123 First St., said Leominster Police Sgt. Alan Anderson.
Beauvais was pronounced dead at Leominster Hospital shortly after the 2:40 p.m. accident, Anderson said.
Just how the accident occurred was unclear, but Winthrop Farwell Jr., commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety, said the elevator had not been inspected recently because the building has been vacant for several years.
Farwell said Beauvais' hand was somehow caught in the elevator's viewing area, a space through which people inside and outside of the elevator can see each other. As two Whitney Carriage employees rode the elevator, Beauvais' hand was caught and held fast, causing him to be pulled into the shaft head first and to plummet three stories. Anderson said Beauvais was found outside the elevator shaft on the ground floor. He suffered tremendous blood loss as a result of the fall, Anderson said.
Farwell and Anderson said the building was undergoing renovations to house an office of the state unemployment agency, and that all but the first floor are vacant. The building, which has been out of use for several years, was formerly a plant for Milor Co., a plastics manufacturer, Anderson said. A massive structure with lots of warehouse space, the building has often been used by various firms as a storage facility over the years.
Leominster and State police and state elevator inspectors are investigating the accident. There was at least one witness to the accident, another employee who was being interviewed by authorities last night.
Officials from Whitney Carriage could not be reached for comment last night.
Back to Boston.Com
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