The terrible story of someone’s child crushed in a college dorm elevator took anb ironic turn with the following news:
College students, especially 18-year-old ones, seem to have to learn some things the hard way. Well, not to make light of anyone’s death…more as a bitter commentary…trying the old “let’s see how many freshman can fit into this phone booth” stunt on an elevator isn’t that cool. There’s a reason those things have a posted weight limit.
If you accept the fire chief’s estimate of 3600+ pounds, that works out to 150 pounds or so average for the 24 students crammed into the elevator.
A painful lesson in math, public safety notices, and emergency service response time.
Okay, good point, but as was pointed out in the Columbus Dispatch article I read, an elevator that exceeds its weight limit should not suddenly plummet with the doors still open, as this one did. It should just sound an alarm and refuse to move. The kids overloaded the elevator, definitely, but the malfunctioning elevator was still the primary cause of the tragedy.
MsWhatsit is right. I’m in a different dorm at OSU and here the elevator doors refuse to close if it is anywhere near the weight limit. Many times we’ve tried getting a lot of people on an elevator–specifically move-in day and going to floor meetings–and after we’ve all climbed in, the elevator car just sits there. So we push a couple people out and everything is ok. It was merely a freak accident that this time it resulted in tragedy.
Personally, no one has learned anything “the hard way” other than shit happens and not a single day is promised to us. I won’t change how I use elevators because of one accident, though many people I’ve talked have vowed to take the stairs up 23 floors because they won’t set foot on another elevator.
It was a horrible, tragic accident; not a “painful lesson in math”.
Back in my day (in Taylor Tower), we crammed people in elevators and they always worked fine. I’ve never had one refuse to close and never had one fall unexpectedly. People on college campuses do dumb things to elevators and Stradley isn’t a brand new building. Years of stupid elevator use can be hard on an elevator. IIRC, it was a Stradley elevator that was used to deliver a part of flock of ducks to each floor of the building.
I also don’t remember the weight limit being posted on the elevator. The certificate was not on the elevator…in fact, I haven’t seen a certificate on an elevator in a loooong time.
I’m in Lincoln House, one of the twin towers in west campus by the stadium.
You’re right, the certificate is not on the elevator, they conveniently tell you that you can find it at the front desk on floor 15. However, there is a plaque saying the official weight limit is 2500 pounds. (At least in the elevators in my building.)
None of the dorms are new buildings, but this specific elevator was inspected in July of this year and passed. There’s no reason it should have malfunctioned like this.
`Brilharma
No, as I said earlier in the thread, a correctly functioning elevator will simply not operate when experiencing an overload. It will not precipitously drop with the doors still open. That is a safety malfunction, and Brilharma is absolutely right when he says that there was no reason for it. Because the elevator malfunctioned, it’s actually impossible to tell whether the overload was the cause, or whether it would have happened under a normal load. You can conjecture that it probably wouldn’t have, but again: If it had been correctly operating, it would not have behaved as it did anyway.
Possibly it’s as xbuckeye suggests: the elevator had suffered from overloads in the past, and this one defeated it.
I imagine the accident will be carefully investigated, and it may well prove possible to determine just what happened. My guess is that the overload will be found to have contributed to the problem.
[ol]First 16 students get on the elevator. All is well.
[li]17th student gets on, sending it over the weight limit.[/li][li]One of the following happens:[/li][ul]
[li]The warning buzzer doesn’t work[/li][li]They’re making a lot of noise and can’t hear it[/li][li]They ignore it[/li][/ul]
As the proper behavior of an overloaded elevator is to stand there with its doors open and not move,
[li]Students 18-24 cram in.[/li][li]The elevator, no longer physically capable of supporting the weight, begins to fall.[/li][/ol]
Lo these three years ago when I was living there we, and I am sure you did too, had a fire drill on the second day or so of Fall quarter freshman year. For those not familiar with Lincoln, it has housing only on the 16-23rd (I think it’s 23) floors. At about 60 people a floor, thats about 500 people living there. Naturally most of them were in the dorm for this fire drill. At the end of the fire drill all of those people of course wanted to go back to their rooms. Those rooms being a minimum of 15 flights of stairs up.
Well, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. People were stuffing into those elevators, way overloading them. The worst that happened was that one got stuck for about an hour or so. Being a fairly intelligent lass I had taken the 20 flights of stairs to my room instead of jamming on the elevator. A suitemate of mine was not that intelligent, and ended up stuck on that elevator. You know how hot an elevator gets after an hour so jammed packed with people? Pretty damn hot judging by his sweat soaked shirt.
Anyways, the guy really got unlucky. Apparently the elevator started going down with the doors open. He tried to get back out, but didn’t make it. Apparently he got crushed with his legs dangling in the elevator. Hell of a way to start school. Watching another student get crushed, then having to see his legs while waiting to be rescued.
See…since Taylor is an honors dorm, we, the hall staff, overrode the elevators on the control panel in the office and “grounded” them all on first floor. Actually part of our fire drill procedure was to recall the elevators so people had to use the stairs to evacuate. We just ‘forgot’ to start them back up until the lobby was mostly clear and people had gone up the stairs.
I don’t know that we ever had 24 people in an elevator, and I also don’t know the dimensions of the South campus elevators compared to the North campus ones, but I’ve been packed into an elevator with a group of friends in ways you would not pack into an elevator with strangers. It was all a part of the OSU experience and let’s face it, you don’t want to wait for the next elevator when all your friends are on the first elevator.
As the proper behavior of an overloaded elevator is to stand there with its doors open and not move,
[li]Students 18-24 cram in.[/li][li]The elevator, no longer physically capable of supporting the weight, begins to fall.[/li][/QUOTE]
That would be my expectation as well. When an elevator is stopped at a floor, there is a brake on the hoist - just friction against the cable winding sheaves, rather than anything grabbing the cable, or any sort of prongs latching the car to the shaft.
Too much weight simply made the brake slip and the car dropped. Then, either the hoist brake re-engaged, or the safety brake engaged.