15 patients trapped in OGH lift due to technical snag

Two-and-a-half hour ordeal for patients, one doctor and two nurses

Fifteen patients, one doctor and two nurses, were trapped for nearly two-and-a-half hours in a lift in the old building of the Osmania General Hospital (OGH) on Monday.

Among the patients was a pregnant woman. The incident took place around 11.30am. The lift was stranded between the ground and the first floor. The lift operator tried to stop the lift at the first floor but was unable to do so. Sensing the danger, he tried to pull the lift grill but the lift remained stranded between the two floors.

Police and fire officials from Gowliguda rushed to the spot. The officials reported that when they arrived on the scene, they noticed that the people stuck in the lift were nervous and panic-stricken. The grills of the lift were opened using a gas cutter and all the people trapped in the lift were rescued safely.

“If the lift was a closed door type, there would have been causalties due to suffocation,” opined a doctor at the hospital.

Hospital authorities heaved a sigh of relief after the two-and-a-half hour struggle came to a happy end. But the patients fumed for the hospital’s negligence to maintain the lift. This was not the first time that the lift at the old building experienced a technical snag. In the past, a lift operator was stranded alone.