CRUSHED IN A LIFT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 10552, 29 February 1896, Page 2

CRUSHED IN A LIFT.

ACCIDENT TO A MEDICAL MAN. A Sydxey doctor, Dr McFonagh, a few days ago met with an accident which very nearly resulted fatally, in a lift, as he was about to visit a patient at the Royal Hotel, George-street. He was ascending in the lift with a frieud and a lady. When the lift reached the top floor, tho Herald reports, Dr M*Dcnagh got out, but before his friend had time to follow him the lady asked Dr M'Donagh to step back into the lift as she wanted to speak to him op an urgent matter. Dr M'Donagh replied that he had been called to see a patient, but on the lady's stating that she would not keep him a second and that she wished to speak about tho state of her health, he replied, <l All right," and proceeded to re-enter the lift. To do so it was necessary for him to bend his head. He bent slightly forward, but before he had time to step into the lift it suddenly began to descend without any warning being given, and the back of Dr M'Donagh's neck was caught by the top of the door. He realised in an instant the terrible position in which he was placed, and putting forth all his strength endeavored to resist the almost resistless hydraulic force that drives the lift. With his feet on the top floor and his neck on the rapidly descending lift, Dr M'Donagh was quickly doubled in two. If he tried to go back ho would probably be cut in two, and he therefore endeavored to get into the lift. His companion, Mr Jerome, also saw that this was his only hope, aud endeavored to pull his friend into tho lift. He succeeded in so far as Dr M'Donanh, after being severely bent and strained, got into the lift with the exception of his left leg, which was caught and severely jammed between the top of the lift and the top floor. The doctors left leg was terribly cut aud fractured, and it would have been taken off had it not been that his resistence to tho downward motion of the lift had caused the line to get off the pulley, and the lift was thus brought to a standstill. It was sometime before the lift eou'd be got to work again, and until this was done Dr M'Douagh was lying in the bottom of the lift in his injured condition. As soon as possible the broken leg was set temporarily, and after the hospital ambulance had beon obtained, the sufferer was removed to his home in Macquarie-street, where the painful operation of setting the broken bone was repeated.