With cities going increasingly vertical in their designs, elevator accidents are no longer limited to places like New York City and Chicago. Our Houston injury lawyers find that in Dallas, Houston, and other Texas cities, residents increasingly are experiencing danger from improperly designed, maintained, and serviced elevators. Power surges, structural shifts, and crazed murderers only add to the dangers workers and residents in high-rise towers face every day.
For example, in 2003 a Houston doctor was decapitated by a gruesome elevator accident. Hitoshi Nikaidoh became trapped in an elevator’s doors at Christus St. Joseph Hospital. As the elevator began moving, it severed his head. Reportedly the elevator, located in the hospital’s George W. Strake Building, had been closed for four days before the out-of-order sign disappeared.
The CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) says that around 30 people die each year on elevators and escalators. Another 17,000 receive injuries. Causes of these accidents might include several types of malfunctions or inadequate maintenance:
States require inspection of elevators before they go into service, and periodic inspections thereafter. But no federal regulations or CPSC standards govern elevators as they do many other potentially dangerous mechanical products. The lack of uniform nationwide standards governing elevators and their use enhances your chances of injury from an elevator. Elevator workers also suffer disproportionately from this lack of federal governance. Indeed, elevator repairmen and installers rank fifth on the list of construction-related workplace deaths.
If you suffer a Houston elevator accident, you should first make sure that you get the medical treatment you need for your injuries. Then contact authorities and an experienced Houston injury lawyer to conduct a thorough investigation of the accident and its causes. Your lawyer will need to obtain and preserve relevant evidence of the accident causes to prove your accident injury claim. Your Houston injury lawyer will also need to get extensive photographic evidence of the accident scene and obtain a detailed inspection of the elevator, the elevator control center, and elevator components. Your claim might require qualified expert testimony from elevator engineers, elevator safety experts, and/or professional building managers.
An accident claim from an elevator injury or death generally revolves around highly technical evidence relating to equipment, functionality, inspection and maintenance procedures, and electrical systems. You’ll need the able help of a Houston injury lawyer with extensive experience in accidents involving complex mechanical equipment such as elevators, carnival rides, and heavy trucks.
Don’t delay in contacting our experienced Houston injury lawyers after your elevator accidents. Accident claims are governed by statutes of limitations (filing deadlines). If you let your filing deadline expire, you could forever lose your legal rights to make a claim for compensation fro your elevator accident.
Contact us today at Denena & Points for a free and confidential legal consultation. We could help you understand how to obtain just financial compensation for your medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other losses from a traumatic elevator accident.