How To Survive In a Free-Falling Elevator

Elevators

With numbers like these, it should come as no surprise that elevator accidents happen quite frequently. In the U.S. alone, there are an estimated 900,000 elevators, each serving an average of 20,000 people per year. Collectively, U.S. elevators make 18 billion passenger trips per year. The vast majority of these elevators are located within commercial, retail, or residential properties with an average rise of 40 feet (4 to 5 floors). Each elevator averages about 5 people per trip.

There are five primary types of elevators that can vary in size and capacity: passenger, freight, LULA, home, and personnel. Passenger elevators can be hydraulically-driven, for a maximum travel height of 50 feet, or traction-driven, for medium- and high-rise architecture over 50 feet. Freight elevators are more durable and light on aesthetics, being able to carry heavy loads with a primary purpose of lifting general freight, carrying motor vehicles, and loading industrial trucks. A LULA elevator is named for “Limited Use/Limited Application,” in response to legislation requiring equal access to all individuals within multi-level buildings. LULA elevators are meant to be utilized by a small number of people on a light, as-needed basis, and they are designed to fit in very small spaces. Home elevators are used as a solution for convenience or accessibility within the home, such as for people with limited mobility. Personnel elevators are designed for limited use by maintenance, mechanical, or operations personnel in places such as grain elevators, towers, power plants, dams, and underground facilities.

Elevator Defects and Malfunction

Elevators are subject to defects or malfunction in the following ways, many of which can be dangerous and even fatal to users:

Pulley system malfunction, or a mechanical breakdown or defect causing an elevator to drop rapidly within the shaft
Open shaft, or the risk of fall due to faulty doors or other failures to protect passengers from entry
Faulty wiring, elevator control malfunction, or a risk of electrocution
Incomplete repairs, maintenance, or inspections by unqualified personnel
Unbalanced leveling and the failure of the elevator to line up with the floor
Wiring malfunction or entrapment due to the heat from fire or water from emergency sprinklers or hoses

Injury and Death Caused by Elevator Accidents

There have been some reported cases of death and injury caused by elevator defects or malfunction. In Maryland in September 1996, a 53-year-old construction foreman was killed when a hydraulic elevator that he was working under fell onto him. He died from asphyxiation and head trauma, and his helper was also injured.
In May 1997, a four-year-old girl was killed in Chicago when she became wedged between a floor and the elevator. She had stepped off of the elevator after her mother when the elevator began to move to a different floor.

In July 2001, an 88-year-old woman tripped as she was exiting the elevator of a medical clinic in Edina, Minn. The woman sustained a pelvic fracture and died soon after.

In May 2002, a 35-year-old man was hospitalized in critical condition after falling four floors in an elevator shaft in Mobile, Ala. He had pried the elevator doors apart and slipped through.
In 2002, two sisters aged six and seven years old, were killed in New Jersey when a safety feature in the residential elevator failed to stop ascension of the car as the girls’ heads stuck out past the gate.

Statistics of Elevator Failure

City and state governments are fairly diligent in ensuring that annual public elevator inspections are carried out and reported properly. However, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is not authorized to regulate elevators as it does other products such as automobiles or personal equipment, so elevators and elevator parts are not subject to federal accident inspections or parts recalls. Without a requirement of public parts recalls due to defect, there is little widely available printed information regarding elevator defects.

When an elevator or escalator product is identified by the manufacturer as having a design defect, it is only required to send out a product letter by certified mail to equipment owners. Thus, the press and general public rarely find out about such faulty products until deaths or injuries have occurred.

What is known is that about 27 people are killed in elevator accidents each year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the CPSC, which does report on injury and death associated with elevators. Injuries from elevators affect about 10,200 people per year, with the majority of these accidents being related to elevator door malfunction, carriage misalignment with floors, and passenger safety vulnerabilities.

The U.S. Labor Department’s Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries reports that half of the annual elevator-related fatalities occur in repair or maintenance workers who service elevators, or people who use elevators as part of their employment, such as in an office building. Of those, half of the fatalities result from falls into the shaft. In the occupational-related elevator deaths category, 53 percent occur during installation or repair, 17 percent occur during work in the shaft or car, and 30 percent occur during performance of work adjacent to (but not on board) the elevator.

For passengers using elevators while not at work, such as in apartment buildings, almost half of the deaths were due to falls in the elevator shaft, and the other half occurred as a result of being caught between the elevator and the shaft wall. The underlying causes of the fatal incidents may be due to one of several defects or malfunctions, such as in the wiring, pulley systems, door operation, or improper maintenance procedures.

Nisha Noor dragged into the sexual pressure by Producer

Nisha Noor dragged into the sexual pressure by Producer. The current uproar over the shocking sexual assault against a Malayalam actress seems to have shaken up the image of the Southern film industries. However, tragedy is not new to our actresses. Here is one such case, among many.

In the late eighties, actress Nisha Noor was the talk of the town. She had done many hit films like Kalyana Agathigal (1986), Iyer the Great (1990) and Tik! Tik! Tik! (1981).  Nisha mainly concentrated on Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu movies. She worked with renowned directors like Balachandran, Vishu and Chandrashekar. On-screen, she romanced superstars Rajnikanth and Kamal Hasan.

However, this budding career was soon cut short. She vanished from the scene, disappearing for many years. Rumors, at the time and since then, darkly hinted that Noor was forced into prostitution by a film producer, after which she left the film industry. However, there is no way to verify that rumor no one from the film industry seemed to want to work with Nisha anymore. Also, such rumors match the all too familiar stories about the exploitation of women in film industries, which occur to this day.

In a few years, her financial condition went from bad to worse, and she vanished from all notice. A single lady, it is unclear why she fell out with her family or friends. A long time later, Nisha was rediscovered outside a Dargah, sleeping on the streets and reduced to nearly a skeleton. Nisha’s condition was such that she had worms and ants crawling on her body

She was rescued by a few members of the Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, a Tamil NGO, and political organization. They admitted her to a hospital in Tambaram, Chennai. On being examined, it was discovered that the actress was sick with AIDS, without even being aware of it. Later, she died in the year 2007 in the hospital. And thus, once again, we see the dark side of the glitz and glam industry. If an actress fights against sexual exploitation or opposes the patriarchal mindset – she is, more often than not, treated like Nisha. And just to recall that rumors about Nisha are not unique. Let us remember the story of Shweta Basu Prasad a few years ago. She too alleged that she was pushed into prostitution by similar forces.