Man killed in elevator shaft at TMH

A 60-year-old contract worker conducting maintenance in an elevator shaft within Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare was killed Friday morning.

After an hours-long search and rescue operation that included pulling three people from an elevator stuck between the ground and first floor of TMH’s Professional Office Building, Tallahassee Fire officials found Robert Myers dead.

TFD Capt. Mike Bellamy said the rescue operation began after the three people were removed from the elevator, and Myers remained unaccounted for.

TMH officials were unsure of the details that led to his death, primarily why he was working in the shaft with an operational elevator. They said Myers was responding to a maintenance request placed Thursday night.

TMH’s CFO Bill Giudice said Myers was working alone. He expressed his condolences as emergency crews wrapped up the rescue mission behind him.

“We are heartbroken and saddened that there was a death today,” Giudice said. “Our prayers and thoughts are with the family at this time.”

Responding to the emergency call, firefighters rappelled from upper floors to gain access to the elevator shaft.

A subsequent investigation would reveal just how Myers died, Bellamy said.

“We don’t know exactly what the cause of death would be besides the fact that the maintenance worker was working inside the elevator shaft when we rescued those three folks,” he said.

The last local incident involving an elevator occurred in July 2014, when a 25-year-old construction worker was killed on Florida State University's campus.

In that case, officers were called to the construction site of a new residence hall on Woodward Avenue, where they discovered the body of Travis Joseph Miller, a subcontractor on the job, who was killed when he got trapped between a construction elevator and the building.

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Elevator accident facts

Fatal accidents involving elevators are rare in the United States. About 31 people are killed and another 17,000 are injured each year in elevator and escalator accidents. Most of the deaths, about 90 percent, involve elevators. 

Here are more facts on elevator accidents:

• Half of the fatalities involved people working in or around elevator shafts.

• Most of the deaths involve falls into elevator shafts.

• About five people are killed at their workplace and another five are killed outside their workplace each year.

• From 1992 to 2009, 89 people died in elevators at their workplace. 60 percent involved falls and nearly 7 percent involved collapses.

• From 1997 to 2010, 91 people died in elevators outside their workplace. 56 percent involved falls and 2 percent involved collapses. One person died of a heart attack when the elevator shook. 11 of the deaths were in Florida.

Source: 2013 study by the Center for Construction Research and Training