AMSTERDAM — A dog was killed in a bizarre lift accident in Breda on Thursday morning and a 32-year-old man was treated in hospital after falling 3.5m down the lift shaft.

It all started when the dog ran out of the lift just as the doors closed. The lift car and the dog’s owner went up, but the dog’s lead was caught between the doors and the dog was pulled up from outside as the lift went upwards.
 
The Breda man went to help the dog, but forgot that when the lift doors open, the lift would be one floor higher.

The man fell 3.5m into the lift shaft and the fire brigade was called in to rescue him. He was taken to hospital suffering from an injured shoulder and knee.

A spokesman for the Brabant police told Expatica that the dog was attached to a lead that could be pulled out longer, but the dog was still strangled. The injured man was not the dog’s owner.

Thursday’s accident was a reminder of an accident in the US in which a surgical resident was killed at a Houston hospital when he was decapitated in August 2003.

The 35-year-old victim was stepping into a second-floor lift when the doors suddenly closed, pinning his shoulders. His head was severed when the lift moved upwards.

A hospital employee who witnessed the accident, spent about 20 minutes trapped inside the lift before firefighters rescued her.

[Copyright Novum Nieuws 2004]

Subject: Dutch news