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Patient On Gurney Drops 10 Feet Under Elevator During Accident
A nurse at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute pushed a patient into a first floor elevator Friday morning, October 4, to transport the patient to the fifth floor.
At about 5:30 a.m., a 'highly unusual' elevator accident caused the patient lying on the gurney to drop 10 feet into the void underneath the elevator.
Moments before, the Emergency Room nurse had pulled the emergency stop switch to lock the doors open, a standard procedure when transporting patients, hospital spokeswoman Beth Williams said.
When the patient's gurney was halfway in the elevator, the doors closed and the elevator began rising.
The doors caught the gurney and tilted it upright. Both patient and gurney dropped into the space at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
Hospital staff called St. Lucie County Fire Rescue to extricate the patient from the space below the elevator, Chief Buddy Emerson said. The whole process took about 20 minutes.
The patient sustained only minor injuries from the fall. The nurse was not injured.