- ABC News
- November 19, 2018
Elevator carrying 6 drops 84 floors
Six people left the dining room on the 95th floor of Chicago’s famed Hancock building early Friday, stepped into an express elevator and fell 84 floors before they were rescued by firefighters who had to break through a brick wall to access them. The 100-story skyscraper is the twelfth tallest building in the world, 141 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower. The Chicago Fire Department were called after passengers became stuck at 12:30 a.m. Friday, and officials soon realized two cables had snapped and six people, including a pregnant woman, were trapped in a "blind shaft" elevator. Found in parking garages and other tall buildings, these elevators travel express between floors – in a shaft constructed without openings in between. This caused a big problem for Chicago FD’s Special Ops: "It was a pretty precarious situation where the cables that were broke were on top of the elevator," Battalion Chief Patrick Maloney said. "We couldn’t do an elevator to elevator rescue." They broke...