What to do if the elevator falls

If you regularly have to use the elevator, the thought must have flashed through your head at least once: what if the cables holding the cabin break and you fall into the shaft? And will you be able to survive?

Sounds creepy. But in practice, this situation is extremely unlikely. Statistics show that elevators are the safest way to move between floors. For example, on stairs in the US every year perishes an average of 12,000 people and more than 1 million are injured. For comparison: as a result of accidents with elevators annually about 27 people die and about 10,000 are injured.

At the same time, most of the victims in elevators are builders or repairmen who worked in violation of the rules. safety precautions. Passengers per year perishes about five are people who tried to get out of a faulty cabin on their own or were squeezed by doors or between floors.

Elevators are equipped with numerous safety systems to prevent the cab from falling.

The cabin does not hang in the shaft on cables by itself, but moving along vertical rails. And if it starts to descend faster than the set speed, safety catchers are triggered and elevator smoothly slows down due to the friction of the pads on these rails.

In addition, the pulley system on the cab roof has additional fuse. If the blocks in it move too fast, it will block. So in the event of a break in one cable, the cabin will hang on the remaining ones. Steel ropes are strong and very unlikely to break all at once.

In addition, there are built-in shock absorbers at the bottom of the shaft - these are such pistons in oil-filled cylinders. If the elevator falls from a small height and the safety catchers do not have time to slow it down due to the friction of the pads on the rails, the shock absorbers will accept blow on yourself. And finally, the air itself at the bottom of the shaft, condensing under the falling cabin, serves as a kind of pillow, further reducing potential damage.

But let's say the cables broke, the pulley locking mechanism is faulty, and the catchers did not work. The elevator falls and you have seconds. What to do?

There is a popular advice on the Internet: in the last seconds before the elevator crashes into the bottom of the shaft, you need to jump to be in the air during the collision. But this is another myth.

First, you you can't Precisely guess the time for the jump. And secondly, even if it did, human muscles would simply not be strong enough to compensate for the speed of the elevator's fall - even if you are a world-class athlete. At best you reduce it at 3-5 km / h - this is absolutely not enough. Most likely, you will not only hurt yourself when you fall, but also break yourself head in a jump, if you can pull off this crazy trick.

If you just stand, even holding on to the handrails (if any), the entire impact will be on your legs and spine and you risk serious injury.

Therefore, the best tactic is to lie on your back on the floor as evenly as possible.

This will distribute the force of the blow over the largest area of ​​your body. And no specific area will be at risk of being injured by the weight of any other part of the body, speaks Eliot Frank, research engineer at MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering.

You might think you can save yourself by bending your legs or pulling up on the railings. But at the moment of impact when falling from a great height, your legs simply cannot support the weight of your own body. Even the weight of the head would be too great for the neck, so you can not keep it on weight. Press your head to the floor, protecting it with your hands.

So lying on your back is the most safe option when the elevator falls. You will still be in a lot of pain, and you may break a few ribs, but increase the chances of keeping the internal organs intact.