The elevator jam happened with grandmother and her grandchild at the 15th floor area on the evening of April 14, at V1 building, the Terra An Hung apartment building, La Khe ward, Ha Dong district, Hanoi.

The security camera inside the elevator shows that when the two entered the elevator, the girl carefully observed the elevator and the landing door before entering. However, as soon as she entered the elevator door closed, the grandmother outside and the girl inside the car were extremely scared.

Subsequent actions show that the baby has been very well instructed about the function of the elevator control panel. As soon as the elevator door closed, she quickly pressed the button to open the door, then pressed the emergency bell button. These are all the right actions to take in this situation.

However, after pressing the door open button and the emergency bell button but the elevator door did not open, the girl and the grandmother outside both tried to open the elevator door with both hands, the grandmother tried to put her hand through the door gap to tried to open the elevator but it didn’t work. Immediately after the incident, the building’s technical staff was present to handle it, rescue people safely after about 10 minutes.

According to Mr. Nguyen Duc Tien – Director of the Elevator Emergency Response Center (Vietnam Elevator Association), the girl has been properly taught by adults on safety use of elevator. However, the action of using two hands to pry open the elevator door at the end of the video is wrong, potentially causing more danger in this situation as the cabin continues to move, causing injury to both (the grandmother used her hand and the girl put her foot between the two doors, pry open the door). Because the safety principle is that when the door is open, the safety circuit will not let the elevator motor rotate, but for some reason the door safety circuit is faulty, disabled (due to short circuit, malfunction, …) the cabin is still moving, dragging the whole person, crushing the body part. Fortunately, worse situations did not happen and the technical team was still able to open the door to get the girl out.

The cause of this situation was initially identified as a technical fault of the elevator. Specifically, it is possible that the elevator door sensor system is faulty, leading to the elevator door not opening when someone is entering.

From a technical perspective, elevator doors are usually equipped with one of two types of sensors, which are safety bars and infrared sensors (photocells) with an operating mechanism as shown below:

Working mechanism of elevator door safety bar

The mechanism of operation of the infrared curtain (photocell) of the elevator door sensor: When there is an obstacle that cuts across the beam, the door will not close or if it is closed, it will automatically reopen.

When this device is faulty, it causes door opening and closing errors, door jams. If the user uses their hands or other objects to pry, break the door to try to open the door, it can damage the door jam, make rescue more difficult and damage the elevator.

Of course, in a situation of emergency and panic like this, it is understandable for a 4- 5-year-old girl to act like this. However, experts still recommend that people should have thorough instructions on how to use the elevator for young children, including how to use the elevator and how to handle it in dangerous situations, instruction on what not to do when stuck in an elevator. Specifically, the 6 do’s and don’ts when the elevator is stuck are:

In addition, readers can refer to the following 4 tutorials:

1. [Infographic] – Elevator Safety Tips For Children

2. 8 elevator problems users need to pay attention to

3. Elevator landing doors and user safety

4. The dangers of taking the elevator