A NARROW ESCAPE.

Hokitika Guardian, 22 January 1929, Page 3

A NARROW ESCAPE.

YOUTH TRAPPED IN LIFT. AUCKLAND, Jan. 18. A sensational incident which, carried a second further, would have resulted in certain injury and the probable death of an office boy, aged about 14, occurred in a city warehouse to-day. The lad had dispatched the goods lift from the first floor, intending to send it to the floor below. Instead, however, the lift began to ascend. The boy, who was leaning forward, on noticing that the lift was rising, drew back, but was struck on the back by the gates which descend when the lift has left the floor, arul trapped in a gradually closing vice. Fortunately the lift was not a fast one. He shouted for help. His call attracted prompt attention, hut before the lift, which is controlled by ropes, could be stopped, the youth had been lifted off his feet, his neck being caught between the rising lift floor and the descending gates. Luckily two employees, one on the ground floor, and the other on the floor above, acted quickly, and stopped the lift before the boy was dragged to the ceiling. He was released suffering only from minor bruises to the neck. In another instant his fate would almost certainly have been sealed.