One among my dizzying array of childhood fears was the fear of being trapped in a falling elevator. As an adult the morbid fear is gone but the curiosity remains: if I am trapped in an elevator whose cables have snapped and is free-falling under gravity, what is the best thing to do, and what is the best place to be and the best position to take, so the impact may not kill me?
I think the answer depends on how high the elevator was when it began its freefall, so let’s say the 6th story - I live at that height.
I guess the chances of surviving a falling elevator are far better than surviving an aircrash. If airlines can waste your time telling you how to use the seat cushions as “flotation devices”, then I think the general public also deserves to know how to handle an elevator crash.
It’s pretty much out of your hands. There just isn’t much you can do in that circumstance except attempt to shriek a previously thought-out prayer for mercy from whatever deity you prefer…
Another question born of morbid curiosity: what would happen to me? Will the roof slide down and crush me to pulp? Would something spiky tear through the floor and impale me? Or would the cables come down, Omen-style, and cut me in half? Or all of these and them some?
Well, assuming all the safety devices failed, what would happen to you would be (roughly) the same thing as falling the same distance without the elevator. That is, you hit the ground and it hits you back.
All the other stuff could happen, but you won’t care because gravity.
There are too many variables to give a single answer. For one thing, it is very unlikely that you would be appraching free-fall conditions. The elevator is essentially on a track within a frame, and there might be significant friction to slow the acceleration as the cage rattles and bumbs agains the frame on the way down. Anoth thing that might make a difference is the tightness of fit of the elevator within the shaft. If it’s a tight fit and the lower floor doors have reasonably tight seals, as the elevator falls the air pressure beneath it (and the resistance to acceleration) grows. Donno though if that would be enough to make a difference.
As to what’s underneath an elevator, that too is a variable. I can tell you that at the bottom of the freight elevator shaft in the National Gallery of Art, there is a giant spring two or 3 feet tall. Presumably this would cushion that landing at the bottom if it were very heavily laden. But a elevaor in freefall? The spring might pop right through the floor and hurt or kill anyone above it.
If you’re free-falling from the 7th floor, the factor most significantly against you is time. It’s over before you have a chance to do anything, even if there was anything to do, and even if you had the power to do it.
As to the likelihood of this happening: It happened to an uncle of mine. He was in the hospital for weeks. The guy in the elevator with him didn’t make it. This was an industrial elevator at a cement plant rather than your typical Otis thing. The collapse of the cage was the main issue, not the direct impact per se.
But … if you do have a slow enough falling elevator so there’s a bit of gravity and enough time: lie absolutely flat. Put a hand or two behind your head.
Arguably, they already know everything they need to. Normal elevators in publicly accessible buildings have a “freefall” failure rate so low that any time spent preparing for this is wasted.
And by “so low”, we’re talking one recorded instance, ever, and none in the US. Even the famous Empire State Building fall in 1945 (a bomber hit the building, snapped the cable, and an elevator dropped 75 (!) floors with one occupant) only resulted in injury. (Note this doesn’t include construction elevators, just public ones).
That said, I’ve seen a couple of sites which claim about 27 deaths a year in the US, mostly from inattentive people walking into open elevator shafts or the door closing safeties failing and people having body parts/halves severed…which frankly seems to me like a much more horrific way to die than simple falling.
Mythbusters did the elevator freefall from the 8th floor I seem to remember. It is probably on youtube for free. I watched the episode on Netflix last week. Poor Buster! :eek:
That being said, proper elevators have safety brakes that are purely mechanical, they have to grab when the elevator starts falling and from what I remember, they are very dependable.
I had a commercial 1 story open elevator cable break, I fell about 5 feet with stiff legs and it knocked the crap out of me. My back was killing me for weeks after that.
Wasn’t there a theory (that I’m sure has been busted) that if you stood in the middle of the elevator and managed to time it so that you jumped in the air a moment before the elevator hit bottom, you would drastically increase your chances of survival?
Elevator accidents, including completely snapped cables, have happened far more frequently in India, the latest I am aware of being this. The elevator collapsed 3 floors and there were only minor injuries.
There are many small elevator companies here, and looking at some of their contraptions gives me the jeepers.
If it’s really your lucky day, the piled-up elevator cable under the car, plus the car and shaft acting like a giant albeit inefficient air spring, will take enough off the impact to allow you to survive. It’s not the way to bet, though.
As I understand it, the Otis-style elevators are supposed to be fail-safe. That is, they cannot move without tension in the cable. But I wonder why they don’t build crumple zones at the bottom of non-Otis elevators? An elevator won’t be falling at more than the speed of a car crash.
