Two killed in three Rio de Janeiro elevator crashes in 24 hours

Three elevator accidents in just 24 hours have killed two people and injured another in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. The accidents occurred between Sunday afternoon and Monday afternoon and have drawn attention to the conditions in which equipment is stored and maintained in the city, particularly because two of them occurred in public buildings, including a large hospital.

The first case occurred precisely in the Salgado Filho Municipal Hospital in the Meyer district, in the northern zone, one of the most important hospitals in the capital Rio de Janeiro, and resulted in the death of a 28-year-old young man. He went to the hospital after feeling unwell, he got worse as soon as he arrived, and he died in an elevator that broke down and was stopped for 16 minutes between two floors, when the young man was being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, the intensive care unit, to receive more intensive care.

Hours later, on Monday morning, an employee of the State Department of Finance in downtown Rio was injured in another elevator incident. The elevator she was taking to the floor where she works did not stop at the chosen floor, but continued to rise at high speed and stopped only when it hit the ceiling.

The third incident occurred on Monday afternoon, 24 hours after the first, this time in a building in the famous Copacabana district, south of the city. A technician called in to try to fix persistent faults in the building’s elevator died while carrying out maintenance, and the equipment spiralled down the shaft with dizzying abandon until it hit the bottom hard.