Death by elevator: real-life Gothic in New York City.
fire officials initially believed the doors closed on Ms. Hart’s leg, [but] it appeared from surveillance video and witness accounts that the doors remained open as the elevator suddenly ascended.
“She is just kind of yanked up with it,” a fire official said. “Then, the elevator car becomes pinned between the first and second floor. It seems like her body is what stops the elevator’s movement.”
Horrible for the witnesses just feet away:
it took about an hour just to remove the two other passengers, who were not hurt but were taken to New York University Langone Medical Center. “I don’t think any physical injuries,” he said. “It is just what they saw, traumas.”
Elevator horror has been a steady, quiet theme over the years. As the Times notes,
Last year, there were 53 elevator accidents in a city of 60,000 elevators, [A spokesman for the Department of Buildings, Tony] Sclafani said, three of them fatal.
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