Gair, Gair, Conason, Rubinowitz, Bloom, Hershenhorn, Steigman & Mackauf is a New York Plaintiff's personal injury law firm specializing in automobile accidents, construction accidents, medical malpractice, products liability, police misconduct and all types of New York personal injury litigation.

Articles Posted in Elevator and Escalator

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4 workers suffered minor injuries after being stuck in an elevator 200 feet below the Brooklyn Con Ed Plant. 3 of them were contractors and one of them was a Con Ed employee. Emergency responders received a call around 7:40 am this morning about workers being stuck in an underground elevator at the Hudson Avenue generating station in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn. The employees were 220 feet below ground when the elevator stopped abruptly. It took several hours for the FDNY to get down the shaft and rescue each man one after the other. Each worker was put in a harness and then pulled up the shaft by the firefighters.  All of them suffered minor injuries and were taken to the hospital to be treated.

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A construction worker suffered critical injury after he fell down an elevator shaft in NYC. The 42 year old man was an employee of Economy Elevator Inc. He was working on a construction site at 246 Johnson Ave in Brooklyn, NYC when he fell seven stories in the elevator shaft. Other workers who heard him scream came to the rescue and call the emergency medical workers. The workers was able to move his hands and his feet when the EMS put him on the stretcher. He was transported to the hospital in critical condition. According to DNA Info the worker was wearing a harness when he was found on the ground. However it is not clear if it was attached to anything at the time of the accident. Read more in DNA Info 

246 Johnson Ave is located at the corner of Bushwick Place near the Montrose L stop. In 2014 it was a one-story building that was bought by developer Moshe Silberstein. A residential building is now being constructed at this location. See below a picture of the building from Google map before development.

246 Johnson Ave

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3415 Neptune Ave street viewA baby girl died in an elevator accident in New York City on Thursday.  Her mother was also injured in the accident. She was expected to survive. Last  Thursday around 10:30 am, 21 year old Aber Al-Rabahi put her 6 month old daughter Areej Ali in her stroller and headed out of her apartment for a walk. Aber Al-Rabahi and her daughter called the elevator on the 23rd floor of of the Sea Rise, a residential building located at 3415 Neptune Avenue, in Coney Island, Brooklyn. As the elevator doors opened, the mother pushed the stroller inside and walked in without  realizing that the car was stuck 6 feet below. The mother landed on the top of her daughter on the roof of the elevator. The elevator fell down eight stories where the the mom and her daughter landed on the roof. A maintenance worker who heard the mother screaming ran to the rescue. The mother and the infant were both transported to the hospital. The infant was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. The mother is expected to survive.

Neighbors told the NY Daily News that both elevators in the building were constantly having problems. On Wednesday night tenants complained that the elevator was not functioning proprely. A mechanic from Centennial Elevator Co. had arrived an hour before the accident. He was working on the elevator when the accident happened. Centennial Elevator has two open OSHA investigations . One of them is related to one of their employees who lost an arm  while repairing an elevator in New York City last May (see previous blog).

According to the Gothamist, this is the second time that someone was killed in an elevator accident at the Sea Rise Complex. In 1991, Chandler  Johnson bumped into the door of the same elevator. The door opened and Chandler fell to his death down the shaft. Since the young man died, there were 147 elevator violations in the building.

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La Reguera DominicanaA man died in a New York elevator accident on Saturday. Jose Fernandez, 43  from the Dominican Republic was a worker at the Discount Store La Reguera Dominicana on 182nd Street in Manhattan. The man was loading merchandise into the freight elevator in the basement when the accident happened. For some unknown reason, the freight elevator suddenly moved up and trapped his head. The Department of Buildings is investigating the cause of the accident.

The online property profile overview of the NYC Department of Buildings has no record for the elevator. The freight elevator which had no doors was installed illegally a year ago, without a permit when a previous auto repair shop was turned into a discount store.

The building has an open violation for illegal occupancy and last year 3 complaints were opened accusing the building owner of performing renovations without a valid work permit.

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5 people died and 51 were injured in elevator accidents in New York City  last year. Last year in October a man was crushed to death as he tried to escape an elevator at the Espoir Building in Brooklyn (see previous blog). Trying to escape a stalled elevator is not a good idea says the NYC Department of Buildings in a new advertising campaign  being launched today. The campaign entitled “Stay Safe. Stay Put.” is designed to remind New Yorkers that if  they are stuck in an elevator, the safest place to be is inside the car.

Every day millions of people use the 71,000 elevators  existing in New York City.  New York City elevators are relatively safe. The number of people  injured in an elevator accident in the city decreased from 105 in 2007 to 51 last year.

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50 BroadwayAn elevator worker was seriously injured in an elevator accident in New York. The man was working on an elevator in a building in downtown Manhattan when the accident happened. Witnesses said they heard the desperate man screaming for help. The man was working on a newly installed elevator at 50 Broadway in the Financial Distrcit. He was employed by  Centennial Elevator Industries. Firefighters who were called to the rescue were seen transporting the arm in ice in an attempt to preserve it. The worker was transported to the hospital in critical condition.  According to the Post doctors have been trying to reattach his arm.

Read more in the New York Post

Picture of the location of the accident courtesy of Google Map

 

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Park Slope Garage CondominiumA 4 year old boy died after falling in an elevator shaft inside a luxury NYC garage. According to the police, Jack Roberts slipped through a 10 inch gap between a freight elevator and the shaft at the Park Slope Garage Condominium in Brooklyn, NYC. For some unknown reason, the toddler and his parents were allowed to use a freight elevator that was meant for vehicles to get to the third floor of the garage. Other owners of parking spaces who learned about the elevator accident were in shock.  They said it was very unusual for the staff to allow anyone in the freight elevator.  Car owners usually pick up and drop their car in a designated area at the entrance of the garage. Then the staff takes care of taking them in and out of their respective parking spaces using the freight elevators.

After the accident happened, The Department of Buildings filed a complaint requesting an investigation.

The luxury garage was one the first “condominiums for cars” in New York State with more than 100 parking spaces. The actual price of a parking space there is estimated at $300,000.  The initial price for a parking space at the garage when it opened in 1986 was $29,000. At the time it was already considered a very high price. It went up over the years as Park Slope  developed into a trendy neighborhood.  It recently shot up after another similar condominium garage located nearby closed.

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A few days after a DOI investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about faulty elevators that killed a resident and injured another, the NYC Housing Authority announced that Ken Buny, the head of the elevator division was fired. Five NYCHA employees who failed to communicate that the elevators were malfunctioning were also reassigned. They are all facing disciplinary charges that could also result in firing. (Read more in the NY Daily News)

The investigation revealed that NYCHA knew about the faulty elevator before the fatal accident happened but because of a communications  breakdown nobody went to fix it.  On December 24 2015, the NYCHA’s Customer Contact Center (“CCC”) received a phone call from a resident at the  NYCHA’s Boston Road Plaza senior building in the Bronx to inform them about a very dangerous malfunctioning elevator. NYCHA didn’t take immediate action to put the elevator out of service. An hour and half  later, 84 year old Olegario Pabon was critically injured when the elevator drifted upward as he was trying to get in. He died 3 days later from his injuries.  The investigation also found that the NYCHA senior management learned about the accident four days later. Another man was seriously injured in a similar accident that happened in another NYCHA building less than a month before.

In both accidents, the DOI found that brake monitors that should have automatically shut down the elevators were not functioning. After this discovery the DOI checked the 1,080 NYCHA elevators equipped with brake monitors and found that 80 (more than 7%) of them were not functioning.

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Coney Island HousesAn elevator mechanic died in an elevator accident in New York City on Friday. The accident happened at the Coney Island Houses in Brooklyn, a public housing development belonging to the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).   54 year old Igor Begun, was working in the elevator machine room of the building located at 2926 W. 25th St when he was apparently electrocuted to death.

NYPD and NYCHA are still investigating the causes of the fatal accident. The report from the medical examiner will provide more explanation on the exact cause of the death.

Igor Begun was alone when the accident happened. Another elevator worker who was doing some maintenance work in the lobby found him unconscious in the elevator machine room. He was later pronounced dead.

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A construction worker suffered critical injury in a ladder accident in New York.  The accident happened on a construction site located on W. 17th Street near Sixth Ave in the Flatiron district in Manhattan. The hard hat was standing on a ladder, installing sheet rock on a ceiling frame when the accident happened. The worker who was not wearing a harness fell 50 feet down an elevator shaft and was impaled on steel rebar. The pieces of rebar pierced his abdomen, back, thigh, buttock and groin. Flagrant construction site safety violations are to blame for the accident. According to a primary investigation by the New York City Department of Buildings, the hard hat was not wearing a mandatory security harness. Adding to that, the elevator shaft wasn’t covered and there were no orange safety caps on the top of the rebar. This is the reason it is so important to fight against any changes in Section 240(1) of the New York State Labor Law which hold owners, general contractors and others liable for injures resulting from a lack of safety devices in height related accidents.

The construction site has a history of unsafe working conditions. The owner and developer, 34 17th Street Project LLC, was fined last August for “failure to maintain the building in a code complaint manner” and  unsafe or improper use of elevator or hoisting equipment at the same location. The violation indicated that the hoistway doors wer not secured “causing an immediate hazard that could cause someone to fall down the shaftway”.  In November nothing had changed and 34 17th Street Project LLC was fined for “failing to certify correction of an immediately hazardous violation”.

New Empire Builder Corp, the general contractor who is managing the site also has a history of violations. In 2014 OSHA inspectors responded to a complaint at 286 Spring Street, New York, NY. They found hard hats working in extremely unsafe conditions.  Some workers were standings on scaffolding resting on bricks. A worker was standing 10 feet above ground on a scaffold with no fall safety equipment while raising material on a pulley. Furthermore other workers were at risk of being electrocuted while using an ungrounded electric cement mixer. The contractor was fined  $19,600.

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