Man injured after elevator shot up out of control - GIF

[Altair]

Man seriously injured after elevator shot up out of control in Chile.




Previously:

Elevator traction sheaves - photo
Compressed air elevator - photo
Linear motor elevator - photo and video
Paternoster elevator - GIF
World's tallest elevator test tower - photo and video
Antique Otis elevator mechanism - video

[Frank S]

Passenger elevators come in basically 3 types friction drive, cable over hydraulic and direct hydraulic, 4 if you count magnetic linier drives, but the most common is a friction driven cable system using a huge counter weight depending on the size of the elevator car there can be a minimum of 4 cables to as many as 8 these are connected to an auto lock dead mans link above the car if they go slack for any reason the dead man's link locks the brakes on the car to prevent it from falling un controlled. in the pit under the car there is a bank of buffer springs or other devices to cushion the car if it happens to fall these may or may not be sufeincent to prevent injury or death if a car free falls from height.
the hoisting cables which raise and lower the car on friction drives pass over a huge grooved pulley one end connected to the mechanism on the car the other ends connected to the counter weight. With this type of lift system the only way a car can fall UP is for the car to be lightly loaded IE fewer passengers than excess weight of the counter weight and if the gears in the drive strip off or a shaft breaks. It looks like the car ascended somewhere around 30 floors so the acceleration by the time the car reached the top is anybody's guess. the counter weight could free fall at 32f per second per second but it would have also had the drag of the weight of the car plus the friction of the car riding up the guide rails,it still could have been going fast enough to bounce the man's head off the ceiling

[Fast.Eddie]

That is the stuff of nightmares...

[nova_robotics]

Two guys I went to school with got into a fight in an elevator, and when one pushed the other against the wall the elevator got jammed between floors. They were stuck in there for like 6 hours.

[odd one]

Don't know if I would be quick enough to have the piece of mind while this was happening to lay flat on the floor. The only way I can think of to minimize injury.

[Frank S]

Don't know if I would be quick enough to have the piece of mind while this was happening to lay flat on the floor. The only way I can think of to minimize injury.

He had plenty of time to lay down but a person's mind does not always have good rational instinctive thoughts in these situations