Elevator falls 14 floors in River North, lands in courtroom

(Above) An image of Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile from the hotel’s website.

15-Jan-14 – A former housekeeper at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile says she was in an elevator at the hotel last August when it fell 14 stories, stopped abruptly, and severely injured her.

Juana Herrera is now suing Otis Elevator Company, the manufacturer of the elevator, for $50,000. The lawsuit was filed in Circuit Court on October 18. A status hearing is scheduled for February 6.

On August 1, Herrera says while at work at the Marriott at 540 North Michigan Avenue, she stepped into an elevator that, according to her complaint, did a “free fall from the 24th floor down to the 10th floor.”

The injuries she says she sustained when the elevator stopped suddenly have prevented her from working. She claims Otis was negligent, that the company failed to maintain the elevator, failed to include a fail-safe mechanism to prevent the elevator from failing, and failed to warn users about the danger.

It was Elisha Otis himself who invented the elevator “safety brake” in 1853. Incidents are very rare, but should an elevator start to free fall, multiple safety devices are supposed to prevent the car from crashing – including copper brake shoes that clamp down on the vertical rails on which the elevator rides.

(Left) An illustration by an unknown artist of Elisha Otis demonstrating his elevator safety brake in 1853. (Click on image to view larger version.)

In November 2012, a woman in Thailand died when an elevator dropped from the fourth floor of a furniture showroom.

Otis Elevator Company has an office in Chicago at 651 West Washington Boulevard, about four blocks west of the Loop.