On June 10th, a tragic elevator accident occurred in the Olive Garden residential complex in Qiyang City, Yongzhou, Hunan Province, where a 49-year-old owner, Ms. Huang, fell into the elevator shaft and unfortunately passed away despite rescue efforts being made. Today marks the eighth day since the female owner’s passing, and her daughter, Xiaowu, took to social media to reveal that negotiations on compensation for her mother’s aftermath have been at a standstill.
In her post, Xiaowu expressed the immense pain she has been enduring since witnessing her mother’s accident at the young age of 16. She mentioned how she has had to cope with the loss of her mother, participate in investigations, and be involved in mediation, being forced to mature overnight in the face of the profound trauma of losing her mother.
“Yesterday, at four in the afternoon, I was still calling you (referring to her mother) to urge you to come pick me up from school. But within just an hour, by five o’clock, you had plunged into endless darkness, never to wake up again, and I keep blaming myself. I yearn every day to see you in my dreams, but you have never appeared…” The girl disclosed in her post that her mother’s body is still in the mortuary, and negotiations for compensation have not progressed.
On June 19th, Xiaowu told Dahe News that on the day of the incident, she and her mother were taking the elevator home when it suddenly malfunctioned between the first and second floors, trapping ten residents inside. After pressing the emergency button, the security guard of the complex arrived and improperly used a key to open the elevator door. In a situation where there were no safety measures in place, a female resident was the first to jump out of the carriage.
To help others escape, the resident moved a metal fire extinguisher cabinet from the hallway to under the carriage as a makeshift step. Unfortunately, when Ms. Huang attempted to jump down next, the thin metal of the fire extinguisher cabinet, unable to bear the weight, collapsed along with her into the elevator shaft from the gap between the carriage and the floor. According to a previous report by Red Star News, the elevator shaft is over ten meters deep, and Ms. Huang suffered severe injuries from the fall. Property staff and elevator maintenance personnel who arrived on the scene rescued Ms. Huang from the elevator shaft and rushed her to the hospital. After 20 hours of efforts, she tragically passed away due to severe brain trauma and respiratory failure.
Xiaowu stated that the elevator involved had long-standing safety hazards. The elevator had experienced multiple malfunctions during the Chinese New Year earlier this year. In the days leading up to the incident, the elevator was undergoing repairs. In light of her mother’s tragic accident, the property management should bear the corresponding responsibility for this incident.
According to a Dahe News report on June 19th, the property management had initially offered to compensate the family with 200,000 RMB. However, the family demanded 1.3 million RMB, and as of now, both parties have yet to reach an agreement on the amount of compensation.