Firefighters Rescue 11 Trapped In ETH Elevator  

By Andrew Gorosko

Eleven people who boarded the new hydraulic elevator at Edmond Town Hall on Saturday, June 3, became trapped inside when the elevator stopped halfway between the basement level and ground level of the building.

There were no injuries in the incident, which resulted in 16 firefighters from Newtown Hook & Ladder responding to town hall at 5:47 pm to free the trapped people. Ambulance crews also responded.

The new elevator, which went into service recently, was constructed at a cost of more than $1.5 million. The compact new elevator replaces a tiny antiquated elevator in the building.

Mike McCarthy, the first assistant fire chief at Hook & Ladder who served as incident commander, said that when firefighters arrived, 11 people were trapped in the elevator, including nine adults and two children. Ages ranged from 7 to 88, he said. Most of the people in the elevator car were middle-aged, he said.

The building was crowded at the time with people attending performances of the Stardust Revue staged by the Lathrop School of Dance.

It was a tight fit for 11 people in the elevator, which has less than 30 square feet of floor space, Mr McCarthy said. The elevator compartment is about 4.5 feet deep and about 6.5 feet wide. The elevator, which travels at a speed of 125 feet per minute, has a rated weight capacity of 2,500 pounds. The elevator was inspected last February 23, according to documents posted within the elevator car.

Following the incident, town hall staff members posted signs stating that six is the maximum number of people who should use the elevator at any one time.

After they became stuck, the trapped people used an emergency telephone within the elevator to contact the town’s emergency dispatch center for help. Mr McCarthy said Hook & Ladder firefighters were at their nearby firehouse at the time of the call and then walked to town hall.

Firefighters determined that the elevator was stuck between the basement and ground levels, Mr McCarthy said. The elevator serves four levels of the building.

Using keys, firefighters opened the elevator doors. They determined that the best way to free the trapped people was to have them climb out of the elevator compartment through a hatchway in its roof. Passengers reached the roof of the elevator compartment, then stepped down onto the floor of the ground level elevator lobby, Mr McCarthy said.

Mr McCarthy said no one was injured during the incident, but added that two of the people who were trapped in the elevator have histories of medical problems. A couple of people who were trapped inside the elevator had become anxious, he noted.

The elevator rescue took about one hour, McCarthy said.

Tom Mahoney, who is Edmond Town Hall’s administrator, said that an elevator technician who was called to the scene spent about 90 minutes seeking to learn why the elevator stopped moving between floors and eventually determined that the elevator was “overloaded” with people. As a safety feature, the elevator automatically stops moving when it overloaded, Mr Mahoney said.

Considering that the elevator has a 2,500-pound load limit, the average weight of the 11 people on the elevator would need to be 227 pounds to reach that limit. Assuming that each of the two children weighed 100 pounds, the average weight of the nine adults would need to be 255 pounds to reach the load limit.

Mr Mahoney called the incident “unfortunate.” He urged that elevator users not overcrowd the elevator, but limit the number of riders to a maximum of six people.

“Eleven people in the elevator is a lot of people…It was overloaded…They just didn’t use common sense,” he said.

On June 7, Jeff Jenkins, who is the regional service manager for Kone, Inc, the firm which manufactures and maintains the elevator, however, attributed the June 3 incident to an electrical problem, not a weight-related problem.

“I wish that elevators never broke down, but they do,” he said. It is rare for people to get trapped in elevators, he said.

Mr Jenkins said the Edmond Town Hall can limit the number of riders on the elevator to six people because it owns the elevator. 

“Eleven people is a lot of people in an elevator that size,” Mr Jenkins said.