Kaohsiung District Prosecutor Office prosecuted the elevator maintainer for causing death due to negligence

• Publication Date： 2014-04-09
• Last updated：2019-01-05
• View count：1240

Kaohsiung District Prosecutor Office prosecuted the elevator maintainer for causing death due to negligence One three year old boy was clipped to death by an elevator of the apartment building in Zuoying in the evening of 4. October 2013. The boy’s mother made a misstep and lost her life, when trying to save the boy’s life. After the investigation, the technician Lee （李學泰）, who was in charge of the maintenance of the elevator, was deemed that he should take responsibility for these two lives for his negligence to maintain the relay of the brakes of the elevator in well function, and his ignorance to remind the community management committee of the danger of not changing the old relay of the elevator. According to the testimony of the expert and the authentication report, the modern elevators are designed to equip with a counter weight block at the other end of the rope hanging the car of the elevator in order to maintain the balance of the weight. The counter weight block weighs about half the maximum load of the elevator. The elevator system is also equipped with a brake system to avoid the slipping of the car, which might happen when the car weighs less than the weight of counter weight block. If the brake system doesn’t function as it was designed, the elevator could slip upwards or downwards out of the unbalance of the car and the counter weight block. The force of the electronic control of the elevator amounts to 700 kg, under which human body can break into pieces. Seeing that the boy was clipped by the up-slipping car of the elevator between 7th and 8th floor, and the body showed no signs of broken pieces in this case, the possibility that the slip was due to electronic control can be ruled out. With further examination it was determined that the slip of the car was caused by the malfunction of the relay of the break system. The building where this tragedy occurred was built in 1999, and the elevator has been in operation over 14 years and the relay has never been changed. It was not the first case of death or injury due to the malfunction of the relay of elevators. Similar cases in Taoyuan and Taichung were already reported in mass media in year 2009, 2010. Therefore the accused should be able to foresee the danger of the malfunction of the brake with his professional knowledge, and take notice of avoiding this kind of accident in his daily work. However, he neglected to check the relay of the elevator when making routine inspection in 26. September 2013, and failed to remind the community management committee of the danger of not changing the old relay of the elevator. Ultimately the malfunction of the relay caused the death of the three year boy, and the mother’s life has been also taken away when trying to save the boy. This tragedy could be able to avoid if the accused had checked the relay properly and reminded the committee to change a new relay.