How can the university claim they aren’t responsible when the elevator failed a static break test immediately after the incident (along with 6 other dormitory elevators at the time)?
Well Becky, the test failure had nothing to do with this. The kid exercised poor judgement twice. First by contributing to the overloas which sound initentional as a prank. And second, by attempted to crawl out of the elevator while it was stopped and stuck between floors. Had he remained in the elevator he’d still be alive. You don’t have to be a college student to know climbing out of stalled evelvator between floors is dangerous. Although the chance to dump this roach at $50K is attractive.
Maybe because a static BRAKE test only guarantees that the primary brakes will hold with 125% of capacity, and there are backups to the primary brakes. Just a hunch.
I guess you could argue that as an instituge of higher learning, they neglected to educate this student in the area of elevator safety. But alas, Common Sense is a graduate level course, and this lad was only a freshman.
I learned more about elevators today than I ever knew before!
This kid may have lacked common sense, but it’s a little odd that any number of safety features didn’t prevent this tragedy from occurring. Some mechanism to stop the elevator from engaging under excess load comes to mind. A different mechanism to stop the elevator from moving at all when the door is open (and/or an obstruction is detected) would also make sense.
IMO it is not unreasonable to imagine a claustrophobic (or stupid) person trying to escape from a crowded, stuck elevator.
The kid was 18 and old enough to know better. I have a hard time always trying to make excuses for stupidity and carelessness when something tragic results. It’s hard to believe he never considered the question: “What if I’m halfway out and the elevator starts to move?” That’s why they put emergency call buttons in elevator cars. I doubt there was anything that important that he couldn’t wait for help.
The root cause (proximate cause) was that the elevator was overloaded on purpose, probably as a prank. A contributing factor was that when the elevator became stuck, the student didn’t wait for help after pressing the alarm button. I suspect that a third contributing factor involved alcohol. Unfortunately, this appears to be a clear case of unintentional suicide by elevator and the university should not be responsible. Overloaded brakes fail, that is the point of the test that others mentioned. The overload test identifies things that need repairs. No one was hurt in the other elevators that failed in testing since they were being used correctly. I do not test other driver’s car brakes by playing in the middle of an Interstate Highway, nor do I test mine by slamming them on just before I hit a brick wall. Had the student not been in the doorway while they were doing an uncontrolled elevator test, he would still be alive. People never ask “what if…” and this is obvious when you see them walk in front of a car pulling up to a red light or stop sign. The question here would be “what if the brakes fail on that car?” The answer would be “I would be dead or seriously injured and I or my estate would attempt to sue someone.” The unintended consequence would be that I would be permanently dead or injured and people would post comments on some web site. The final question I would ask is why people don’t say “what if …”
Yes, the elevator responded properly since it moved when it was told to move. Elevators are designed not to fall, this one didn’t. Credit Elisha Otis, who founded a company that still bears his name.
Elevator doors are not easily opened, the outer door usually takes a key with a round shape and a groove cut into it and the inner door is very hard to grasp but you can usually open it with a large screwdriver or a crowbar. If the building is on fire and you do not happen to have a large screwdriver or a crowbar in your pocket, you are in really big trouble. With my particular set of internal fears, I tend to prefer a door that is easier to open.
At my college we did a lot of stupid stuff, our dorms were only 3 floors and we did not have elevators. We did not require elevators to do stupid stuff. We took plenty of people to the hospital, however.
Drunk college kids still have to be careful. It is terribly unfortunate that the parents did not impress on the kid to avoid potentially lethal activities. Most colleges have engineering students that are not quite as much fun when they are drunk because they know that stuff fails. Tell all of the kids who are potential party animals to party with at least one engineering student.
Elevator doors are as idiot proof as they can be since they have to be able to be opened in the event of power failure or fire. Had the students been burned to death because the could not escape, we would have been discussing why they were so hard to open to escape the fire.
I am not certain whether I would prefer to be crushed or burned to death. Neither seems appealing, even if I was toasted drunk, but burning is rumored to be the worst.
I do sympathize with the friends and family, but it is truly not the school’s fault.
So let me get this straight Bob. The doors are meant to be opened from the inside?
So, no matter how it happened, a kid was in an elevator and tried to get out.
Then he was crushed. But its his fault?
When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.
Heres some advice:
If you dont want to be libel for kids getting killed on an elevator, dont get in the elevator manufacturing business.
The fact elevator doors can be opened from the inside with some effort does not imply that just anyone should do it, just as cars can be driven but drunks and persons who do not know how to drive should not do it. Hopefully they will get arrested before they kill themself or someone else, because it is illegal. It probably is not illegal to open an elevator door, but security will remove or restrain you if you do it in a public building because you are creating a hazard. If you doubt this statement, ask a security guard in a public building.
As you state, a kid was in an elevator and tried to get out and was unfortunately crushed. It is an elevator, not a jail cell. I said that it was not the school’s fault. His actions caused his death, beginning with the overloaded elevator, then the attempt to get out instead of pressing the alarm button. If this is not his fault or the fault of the other drunks in the elevator who should have restrained him from crawling out, it does not immediately follow that it is the school’s fault. Perhaps we could call it no-fault?
I do not think he did not use the trap door at the top, he used the passenger door that we have been discussing the relative ease of opening. Had he exited from the top, he might have been able to open an accessible outer door from the inner side and escape unharmed. From the way that I read the article and the original description of the incident, this was not what happened. So we are back to incorrect use of the passenger door in a deliberately overloaded elevator.
Some advice for you:
Don’t get drunk and overload an elevator and expect the manufacturer or the building owner to protect you from doors and fires at the same time. Never walk in front of a moving car, bus, or other lethal moving object until it is completely stopped. Teach your children that things break or fail sometimes, and that you will miss them terribly if they die. Teach them that lawsuit money will never replace them, no matter how much. Teach them to ask “what if…”
Elevators are NOT supposed to engage if overloaded.
My dorm elevator had an alarm as well. It would not respond to any command until enough people got off. (probably because of stupid college students that we were) That was 25 years ago, I would assume that it should be standard on every elevator by now.
Dawn, it is standard on all elevators. All you have to do is jump up and down and you can get it to move. That’s how we did it. Somehow with all the beer it seemed like it was fun. These elevators were not in our dorm, they were in the girls dorm (things were different 25 years ago) and we were making a fast getaway from a noisy party. If we had gotten stuck, campus cops would have had us. We would not have had to press the alarm, and there would have been no time to pry the door open to escape. Perhaps we were lucky that some of us were engineers.
“When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.”
My car doors will open when I am driving down the road. Do you think I should try and jump out,then sue the manufacturer?
Dustin, read the article, the elevator was not driving down the road, it was stuck, people were trapped. Their actions to escape were reasonable and predictable.
When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.
That was your original argument for why the school was liable, correct? Now you say their actions were reasonable and predictable? Was the alarm button broken? Don’t they have instructions on emergency situations posted in the elevator? They should not have attempted to escape the elevator. It was three floors, so there was no imminent danger there. Also, the overcrowding was his fault as well. The school should deny liability. At worst they are partially liable, but I would say at most 30%.
I was merely poking fun at your logic that since the elevator door was easy to open it was implied that it was acceptable to open the door and get out. When I am driving down the highway and about to wreck my car, it is pretty easy to open my car door and bail out, but it is certainly not the best way to avoid the crash.
Dustin, its a safety mechanism. If I were in that elevator, and the inside door wasnt locked, I would think, hmm, thats odd, they could lock that door, but they didnt, so maybe I should give this a try.
Also, no offence, but, theres another thing youve all over looked ……
So, the elevator was overcrowded?
What if my client got on first? Was he supposed to anticipate the whole dorm was going to try to get on too??
See Dustin, youve just got to keep that brain working…lawyers are pretty smart.
More than smart enough to get some cash out of this one….
You know what else, 30% fault might sound fair to me, so I might actually agree with you.
Ohio State is arguing he contributed to the overcrowding, which I read as he got a bunch of people to get on because it would be fun. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. That will be up to the attorneys to argue.
Personally, unless the eleveator was about to fall like in Speed I wouldn’t try and get out. Again, that is just me. Elevators get stuck all the time, so in my mind there is no reason to flip out and try and crawl out.
How can the university claim they aren’t responsible when the elevator failed a static break test immediately after the incident (along with 6 other dormitory elevators at the time)?
Well Becky, the test failure had nothing to do with this. The kid exercised poor judgement twice. First by contributing to the overloas which sound initentional as a prank. And second, by attempted to crawl out of the elevator while it was stopped and stuck between floors. Had he remained in the elevator he’d still be alive. You don’t have to be a college student to know climbing out of stalled evelvator between floors is dangerous. Although the chance to dump this roach at $50K is attractive.
Maybe because a static BRAKE test only guarantees that the primary brakes will hold with 125% of capacity, and there are backups to the primary brakes. Just a hunch.
I guess you could argue that as an instituge of higher learning, they neglected to educate this student in the area of elevator safety. But alas, Common Sense is a graduate level course, and this lad was only a freshman.
I learned more about elevators today than I ever knew before!
This kid may have lacked common sense, but it’s a little odd that any number of safety features didn’t prevent this tragedy from occurring. Some mechanism to stop the elevator from engaging under excess load comes to mind. A different mechanism to stop the elevator from moving at all when the door is open (and/or an obstruction is detected) would also make sense.
IMO it is not unreasonable to imagine a claustrophobic (or stupid) person trying to escape from a crowded, stuck elevator.
Finally – $50k? Settle it!
The kid was 18 and old enough to know better. I have a hard time always trying to make excuses for stupidity and carelessness when something tragic results. It’s hard to believe he never considered the question: “What if I’m halfway out and the elevator starts to move?” That’s why they put emergency call buttons in elevator cars. I doubt there was anything that important that he couldn’t wait for help.
Only 50K for their son’s life? Either they don’t feel the have a strong case or they are hoping a quick out of court settlement. Very strange amount…
Its not the kids fault, the door shouldnt open between floors. And if you are supposed to stay in, why is there a trap door at the top??????????????
Your all azzrods.
The root cause (proximate cause) was that the elevator was overloaded on purpose, probably as a prank. A contributing factor was that when the elevator became stuck, the student didn’t wait for help after pressing the alarm button. I suspect that a third contributing factor involved alcohol. Unfortunately, this appears to be a clear case of unintentional suicide by elevator and the university should not be responsible. Overloaded brakes fail, that is the point of the test that others mentioned. The overload test identifies things that need repairs. No one was hurt in the other elevators that failed in testing since they were being used correctly. I do not test other driver’s car brakes by playing in the middle of an Interstate Highway, nor do I test mine by slamming them on just before I hit a brick wall. Had the student not been in the doorway while they were doing an uncontrolled elevator test, he would still be alive. People never ask “what if…” and this is obvious when you see them walk in front of a car pulling up to a red light or stop sign. The question here would be “what if the brakes fail on that car?” The answer would be “I would be dead or seriously injured and I or my estate would attempt to sue someone.” The unintended consequence would be that I would be permanently dead or injured and people would post comments on some web site. The final question I would ask is why people don’t say “what if …”
So, just for clarification, did the elevator respond properly as was designed?
Were the doors designed to be so easily pried open?
At my college we used to mess around just like this, and we could rip the doors open and roll out half way through a floor.
Drunk college kids are just that, KIDS.
To an extent elevators need to be idiot proof.
Yes, the elevator responded properly since it moved when it was told to move. Elevators are designed not to fall, this one didn’t. Credit Elisha Otis, who founded a company that still bears his name.
Elevator doors are not easily opened, the outer door usually takes a key with a round shape and a groove cut into it and the inner door is very hard to grasp but you can usually open it with a large screwdriver or a crowbar. If the building is on fire and you do not happen to have a large screwdriver or a crowbar in your pocket, you are in really big trouble. With my particular set of internal fears, I tend to prefer a door that is easier to open.
At my college we did a lot of stupid stuff, our dorms were only 3 floors and we did not have elevators. We did not require elevators to do stupid stuff. We took plenty of people to the hospital, however.
Drunk college kids still have to be careful. It is terribly unfortunate that the parents did not impress on the kid to avoid potentially lethal activities. Most colleges have engineering students that are not quite as much fun when they are drunk because they know that stuff fails. Tell all of the kids who are potential party animals to party with at least one engineering student.
Elevator doors are as idiot proof as they can be since they have to be able to be opened in the event of power failure or fire. Had the students been burned to death because the could not escape, we would have been discussing why they were so hard to open to escape the fire.
I am not certain whether I would prefer to be crushed or burned to death. Neither seems appealing, even if I was toasted drunk, but burning is rumored to be the worst.
I do sympathize with the friends and family, but it is truly not the school’s fault.
So let me get this straight Bob. The doors are meant to be opened from the inside?
So, no matter how it happened, a kid was in an elevator and tried to get out.
Then he was crushed. But its his fault?
When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.
Heres some advice:
If you dont want to be libel for kids getting killed on an elevator, dont get in the elevator manufacturing business.
The fact elevator doors can be opened from the inside with some effort does not imply that just anyone should do it, just as cars can be driven but drunks and persons who do not know how to drive should not do it. Hopefully they will get arrested before they kill themself or someone else, because it is illegal. It probably is not illegal to open an elevator door, but security will remove or restrain you if you do it in a public building because you are creating a hazard. If you doubt this statement, ask a security guard in a public building.
As you state, a kid was in an elevator and tried to get out and was unfortunately crushed. It is an elevator, not a jail cell. I said that it was not the school’s fault. His actions caused his death, beginning with the overloaded elevator, then the attempt to get out instead of pressing the alarm button. If this is not his fault or the fault of the other drunks in the elevator who should have restrained him from crawling out, it does not immediately follow that it is the school’s fault. Perhaps we could call it no-fault?
I do not think he did not use the trap door at the top, he used the passenger door that we have been discussing the relative ease of opening. Had he exited from the top, he might have been able to open an accessible outer door from the inner side and escape unharmed. From the way that I read the article and the original description of the incident, this was not what happened. So we are back to incorrect use of the passenger door in a deliberately overloaded elevator.
Some advice for you:
Don’t get drunk and overload an elevator and expect the manufacturer or the building owner to protect you from doors and fires at the same time. Never walk in front of a moving car, bus, or other lethal moving object until it is completely stopped. Teach your children that things break or fail sometimes, and that you will miss them terribly if they die. Teach them that lawsuit money will never replace them, no matter how much. Teach them to ask “what if…”
Elevators are NOT supposed to engage if overloaded.
My dorm elevator had an alarm as well. It would not respond to any command until enough people got off. (probably because of stupid college students that we were) That was 25 years ago, I would assume that it should be standard on every elevator by now.
Dawn, it is standard on all elevators. All you have to do is jump up and down and you can get it to move. That’s how we did it. Somehow with all the beer it seemed like it was fun. These elevators were not in our dorm, they were in the girls dorm (things were different 25 years ago) and we were making a fast getaway from a noisy party. If we had gotten stuck, campus cops would have had us. We would not have had to press the alarm, and there would have been no time to pry the door open to escape. Perhaps we were lucky that some of us were engineers.
“When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.”
My car doors will open when I am driving down the road. Do you think I should try and jump out,then sue the manufacturer?
Dustin, read the article, the elevator was not driving down the road, it was stuck, people were trapped. Their actions to escape were reasonable and predictable.
When you put a trap door at the top, and make the elevator easy to open from the inside, you are suggesting to the people inside that it might be acceptable to open the door and try to get out, which is what the kid did.
That was your original argument for why the school was liable, correct? Now you say their actions were reasonable and predictable? Was the alarm button broken? Don’t they have instructions on emergency situations posted in the elevator? They should not have attempted to escape the elevator. It was three floors, so there was no imminent danger there. Also, the overcrowding was his fault as well. The school should deny liability. At worst they are partially liable, but I would say at most 30%.
I was merely poking fun at your logic that since the elevator door was easy to open it was implied that it was acceptable to open the door and get out. When I am driving down the highway and about to wreck my car, it is pretty easy to open my car door and bail out, but it is certainly not the best way to avoid the crash.
Dustin, its a safety mechanism. If I were in that elevator, and the inside door wasnt locked, I would think, hmm, thats odd, they could lock that door, but they didnt, so maybe I should give this a try.
Also, no offence, but, theres another thing youve all over looked ……
So, the elevator was overcrowded?
What if my client got on first? Was he supposed to anticipate the whole dorm was going to try to get on too??
See Dustin, youve just got to keep that brain working…lawyers are pretty smart.
More than smart enough to get some cash out of this one….
You know what else, 30% fault might sound fair to me, so I might actually agree with you.
Ohio State is arguing he contributed to the overcrowding, which I read as he got a bunch of people to get on because it would be fun. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. That will be up to the attorneys to argue.
Personally, unless the eleveator was about to fall like in Speed I wouldn’t try and get out. Again, that is just me. Elevators get stuck all the time, so in my mind there is no reason to flip out and try and crawl out.
Once again, I agree completely, what he did was reckless.