Woman Falls Down Elevator Shaft at Fenway

May 19, 2014
Firefighters cut power to the elevator and went up through the cab's roof to rescue the victim.

May 17--A 22-year-old woman was hospitalized after a terrifying fall down an elevator shaft last night at Fenway Park, Boston fire officials said.

The woman fell from the fourth floor, where the elevator doors were partially open, hitting the elevator stopped on the second floor. She was transported to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital.

Firefighters cut power to the elevator and went up through the cab's roof to rescue the victim. The firefighters initially planned to wait for a pencil ladder, but decided to boost each other up through the hatch to reach the woman quicker.

Boston Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said the woman was unconscious when firefighters arrived and was in "serious condition" last night. A Beth Israel spokesman could not provide the woman's condition today.

A state elevator inspector was called to the scene, and the incident, including how and why the doors to the elevator shaft opened, remains under investigation, authorities said.

Terrel Harris, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety, which oversees elevators, said the elevator has been closed off.

"The elevator has been taken out of service and it will not reopen until the Department of Public Safety completes a full investigation and inspection of all repairs that are necessarily," Harris said.

He said the third floor elevator doors also sustained damage during BFD's rescue effort.

The woman fell near gate B around 11:17 last night, shortly after the Red Sox game against the Detroit Tigers ended. Red Sox officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Fenway security kept people from going down the flights of stairs next to the elevator, and cordoned off the area.

Copyright 2014 - Boston Herald

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