Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-05
ELEVATOR SHAFT ACCIDENTS.
A Washingtonian's Experience Which
He Will Not Forget.

1.-The several recent accidents in Wash
ington of persons falling down elevator
shafts recall to me an experience I once
had which l would care never to repeat"
said a clerk in an uptown hotel
Il was living in Philadelphia at the time
MY physician advised me to undergo an op-
Grafton, and L assented. Arrangements
were made for me at one of the large nos
pitfalls for the quaker city where l would
have good attention and private room. l
left the surgeons office, accompanying him
and my brother across the street to the
hospital. On the way, the doctor suggested
that l stop in a drug store where, on ms
prescription, I took a stiff drink of whisky.
We all joked, as men are apt 10 do i'll the
face of danger, as to whether it was to be
my last drink though l confess L dld not
feel a all humorous, as l was apprenensive
of the outcome of the operation.
when the towel saturated with ether
was applied to my nostrils, l said good
bye and passed into Inconsistencies. Then
came darkness and oblivion, and in an hour
l returned to my senses with buzzing head
very weak. but with that vague, peculiar
indesCribable realization that l had not
died as / had feared from the failure of
a weak heart. and the faces of the surgeons
and attendants around me became gradual
ly distinct.
The Railways of the hospital were spac-
ious and the elevators and their entrances
of corresponding width to admit of the car
rying and rolling of patients from the oper-
ating room to their wards or private apart
ments on the different floors a specially
prepared table with rubber rollers upon the
mattress of which the patient is lifted from
the operating table.
II felt myself being pushed along the hall
toward the elevator shaft, L was lying
with my head toward the attendants hands,
my feet being toward the shaft. l noticed
that the door leading into the shaft was
open. and, as the table approached it, 1
family wondered why the attendants did
not slack speed, but they went on toward
1t. AS weak and despera tely nauseated as
l was from the effects of the anesthetic and
the operation, l saw to my horror that I'M
less the momentum of the table was
stopped that | would be plunged down the
elevator shaft. In that moment of terrible
helpless agony, l seemed to scream loud
enough to be heard a block away, but in
reality my voice scarcely arose above a
whisper. Then l heard the excited tones
Of voices. l felt that the attendants We're
sliding upon the smooth, wooden floor in
their futile efforts to dig their heels there
in and to check the momentum of the table
The next instant it was upon and over the
sill of the. elevator shaft entrance and /
was hurled thirty feet below to the bottom
of the shaft
The sensations of that frightful instant
Of time consumed in my posing at the en-
trance sill to the shaft, and then feeling
myself slip off the table and descend into
space, were such that they may be better
left to the imagination. for words are not
capable of their portrayal. 1t seemed as II
the hospital building had collapsed and
fallen entirely upon me, and then my
senses instantly left me. When 1 came to
several hours afterward, I was lying in bed
in my room with my brother and the mouse
staff standing anxiously at my bedside
To shorten a story of long suffering, my
miraculous escape from instant death was
due to the providential slipping Of the thick
mattress from the table, and it so fell with
me that L landed upon 1t at the bottom OF
the shaft breaking the shock of the fal,
and saving my neck. The doctors agreed
that it was only my remarkable constitu-
ton that enabled me to live through such a
terrific double shock to the system OF an
operation and high fall while in the Sc
quelae of the operation and within an hour
Luckily, my wound was such that the fall
did not seriously reopen it.
AS In the case of the sad death Of DIR
Fisher In this city, who stepped into an
elevator shaft, supposing the car to be In
place, the hospital attendants In nv in
stance seeing the door open. as they after
ward told me, supposed that the car was
also In place, and they pushed the table
rapidly toward the entrance under that
superstition only seeing their error too late
to stop its momentum"