My day at work was more interesting than I desired. I really didn't want to work in the first place, I have my son this weekend and wanted to spend time with him. But duty calls so..........
Nothing went right from the getgo. I woke up late. I arrived at work barely on time, but everyone else was about an hour late. We couldn't locate the key to the snorkel lift I was to use. My boss hadn't ordered all the lamps we needed. The safety harness I needed was missing. (Worked without it anyway - not a good idea) Outriders from Hurricane<G> Erika were on their way. But the heat was high 90s and the humidity stifling and I was out in the direct sun. And we started working 2 hours later than we should have. This isn't the way things were planned. About an hour after we started working, the first firetrucks arrived. I didn't think much of it, we have false alarms often enough, and its not something one gets excited about. Then the police cars arrived, several of them. Jose, who was working with me today, walked around the corner to investigate. This looked to be something different. While Jose was gone, the first news crews arrived, and I started feeling a little paranoia. I could just imagine being seen on television, without any safety equipment, by someone who works at my shop. So, I parked the lift and set off to find Jose. Jose shows up a minute or so later and tells me that someone had been killed in an elevator. So we went back inside and met our boss on his way to the death scene. Hospital security drafted us to get some barricade tape and block the elevator doors at each floor that this particular pair of elevators stopped on. Along the way we managed to pick up the story. This resident was waiting for an elevator on the second floor, planning to go up higher in the building. There were purportedly 2 others waiting with him, an unnamed woman (who was taken to the emergency department due to shock) and a doctor( who disappeared immediately, AFAIK they haven't located him yet). When the elevator door opened, the elevator had not leveled correctly and was a couple of feet too high. The resident tried to jump up onto the elevator platform, but slipped with the upper portion of his body on the elevator floor. The elevator doors *tried* to close on him, and the elevator started to rise as he struggled to get out. The resident had just enough time to scream before he was decapitated. His body fell into the elevator pit in the basement, so wrapped and tangled in cables that it had to be cut into pieces to be removed. Meanwhile his head rode the elevator up to the fifth floor where it greeted a group of people waiting to get on the elevator on that floor. It was very painful to see this residents co-workers, visibly upset, very distraught. I know some of these people quite well, I speak with them all the time. I probably even know this resident by sight, though his name doesn't ring a bell. He was 35 years old. Either Indian or Pakistani. That's just too young to die for want of an elevator. I know the elevator guys pretty well. They are going to have a lot of fingers pointed at them. And they had been working on this particular elevator all of last week. Everytime a baby is born in the women's building next door, the PA system chimes a phrase of "Happy Birthday To You". And there were a lot of babies born today apparently. It seemed morbidly ironic. And my day did not get any worse. But in retrospect it wasn't as bad as it could have been. None of the elevators in this particular building (there are 10) actually work exactly right *all* the time. And I am on these elevators constantly. That's likely on a lot of minds at the hospital now. xponent Down Day Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
