Responding to a reported stalled elevator with people trapped is a typical run for many departments. Most of us are so accustomed to them that we feel quite comfortable responding to them. During the response, our minds are already processing our plan of action: First, try the fireman’s service key if there’s one to recall the car and have the doors open automatically. If that doesn’t work, shut down the power and use an elevator key to open the outside door. Once you get the exterior door open, move a roller or press a release to open the inner car door and gain access to the trapped occupants. Occasionally, you’ll have to open an adjoining shaftway door or the door on the floor above and use a set of elevator poles, a hook, or even a hockey stick to hit the release to open the doors. Then, of course, there’s always going to be that difficult one where you might have to remove an exterior hoistway door’s window and slide a tool or your arm inside along the door to hit a release lever. We all can remember the time the exterior door gave us a problem and we solved it by using the hydraulic forcible entry tool or air bags to force it open.
Pulling up to the subway station and seeing a mob of people in the lobby already confirmed that we had a stalled elevator. Since we respond here often, the Transit Authority has given us keys to the power rooms so we don’t have to force them and cause damage. Approaching the elevators, a firefighter tried recalling them with the firemen’s service key, but it didn’t work. Another firefighter inserted a drop key (a circular rod with a flat piece of metal on one end that’s riveted through the circular rod) and opened the hoistway door, spotting the car halfway down the shaft. At this location, the shafts are 20 stories deep, and the car is large enough to hold 35 to 40 people.
Yelling down the shaft, we informed the occupants that we were on the scene and working on getting them out. As we were waiting for the power to be shut down and the electronic control board to be reset, we got an urgent message over the radio from the member assigned to the power room: “The flywheel is cracked in half.” Since we were so close to the room, we went there and couldn’t believe our eyes: The four-foot cast iron flywheel was cracked in half and offset. The eight cables running through its grooved casings were still aligned but showed signs of also being offset. Immediately, we notified the dispatcher and requested the Transit Authority’s elevator mechanic and our battalion chief to respond.
As we examined the wheel, we decided to slide a halligan bar through the spokes-in case anything moved, we would have some sort of safety wedge. Meanwhile, one member went to retrieve our step chocks and angle cribbing to place them under the side of the flywheel that seemed unsupported. We also informed the occupants that getting them out was going to take longer than expected.
A member stayed in this room to monitor the situation while a few of us headed down into the emergency access stairs between both banks of elevators. These stairwells have metal plate and mesh grating panels that offered us a slight view of the car’s location. Traveling down about seven stories, we realized we were only halfway there and, with our luck, the elevator was in the opposite bank, farther from the stairs. Finally reaching the car, we saw it was suspended in between floors and the side access door was blocked by a steel structural beam. That meant we’d have to take the occupants out using the car’s top escape hatch and then transport them over on top of the roof of the other bank’s car to the emergency stairs. Since we left some members up top, we called for the suitcase ladder, the reciprocating saw, utility ropes, the rotary saw, and the first-aid kit.
When the elevator mechanics arrived, one came to our location and agreed with our idea of removal; he radioed his partner to run the opposite car in inspection mode to our position. While waiting for the car, we sheared the screw heads off the gratings using the ax and halligan. Luckily, the member with the additional tools and ladder was able to ride down inside the car with the mechanic.
As the rescue car neared our location, we informed them when the top of the cars aligned; this way we could climb through the opening in the steel grating and then on top of the cars. We moved slowly and only put one member on the broken car; he removed that hatch and then inserted the scissor ladder into the stalled car. He climbed down into the car, and another member climbed on top of the car. Prior to removing anyone, we tied utility ropes as hand rails from the broken car to the stairs; we made a path so the occupants would walk through it and not step anywhere else. We also radioed the member above that we were relieving the weight in the car and to notify us if anything occurred with the cable and flywheel.
We began removing the occupants, which was quite a lengthy operation because of their ages, sizes, shapes, and mobility. We tried to remove the more agile ones first who weren’t so fearful to climb the scissor ladder and who could squeeze through the narrow hatch. Once we got the occupants out of the shaftway and into the stairwell, they had to walk down quite a few stories to the subway station’s lower platform and then take another elevator back to the street level. I’m sure when they got to these elevators, their minds wandered-probably just as mine does every time we respond to this location.
MICHAEL N. CIAMPO is a 30-year veteran of the fire service and a lieutenant in the Fire Department of New York. Previously, he served with the District of Columbia Fire Department. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire science from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. He is the lead instructor for the FDIC Truck Essentials H.O.T. program. He wrote the Ladder chapter and co-authored the Ventilation chapter for Fire Engineering’s Handbook for Firefighter I and II (Fire Engineering, 2009) and is featured in “Training Minutes” truck company videos on www.FireEngineering.com.
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