Tallest Building Elevator In Chicago Falls As 6 People Escape Death
By Wisdom Peter,
According to report from The Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), One of Chicago’s tallest Buildings had a fault in it’s elevator which was carrying six People including a pregnant woman.
The sixth people are said to have gotten into the elevator on the 95th floor of the 875 North Michigan Avenue building, formerly known as the John Hancock Center, early on Friday when they heard a loud noise as the car started descending.
One of several cables holding the elevator had broken and the car fell rapidly, landing somewhere near the 11th floor, which means the elevator plunged 84 floors before landing.
Non of the six people, according to the report was injured, but they had to wait a long time for firefighters to break through a wall more than 10 storeys above ground.
One of the elevator users named, Jaime Montemayor, who was visiting from Mexico City on a business trip with his wife Maña, said the couple held onto each other and began praying.
While speaking to WBBM-TV, Montemayor said, “At the beginning I believed we were going to die, We were going down and then I felt that we were falling down and then I heard a noise–clack clack clack clack
clack clack.”
Maña also told the Chicago Tribune she noticed dust particles seeping into the elevator.
“I knew something wasn’t ok,” she said.
Chicago Battalion Fire, Chief Patrick Maloney while speaking to WBBM, said, “It was a precarious situation where we had the cable break on top of the elevator and we couldn’t do an elevator-to-elevator rescue we had to breach a wall.”
“That rope is one of several that are connected to the elevator, and, even with this one failing, there’s a redundancy in place,” a city official told the tribune.
“Specifics of how it failed, and what type of failure, is still under investigation,” City Buildings Department spokesman Gregg Cunningham told the paper.
Visitors as noted in the report, are now using freight elevators in the meantime to reach upper floors, while the elevator and two others will be closed until repairs are made and officials figure out what happened, (NTA).
