DEATH IN THE ELEVATOR 

Regulatory agencies should be adept at their responsibility

Barely three months after the painful death of a medical doctor in Lagos, an 18-year-old student of Lagos State Skills Acquisition Centre Technical School, Egan, has lost his life to elevator accident to the same cause. The death occurred at a construction site in Ikoyi where the intern was observing his Industrial Training programme. He was trapped in the lift shafts overnight without anyone knowing. With no safety system in place, his bruised and lifeless body was discovered the following morning, eliciting shock and grief.  

The circumstances of the death of Dr Vware Diaso, also an intern, last August at the General Hospital, Odan, Lagos, were slightly different. But both serve as a poignant reminder of the importance of equipment maintenance and stringent safety measures. The young lady was riding in the elevator in the staff quarters of the hospital which later lost control and tumbled down from the ninth floor. She was reportedly alive for over an hour after the collapse of the machine. When she was eventually rescued and rushed to the emergency ward of the hospital the non-availability of blood allegedly contributed to her death. 

Elevators do malfunction everywhere, in homes, offices, hotels, though they are not on the high list of accidents like fire or building collapse. Some few years back for instance, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported over 50 cases of disasters in the country within three days with 40 of them occurring in Lagos State alone, and killing many Nigerians in the process. Elevator accidents could also be fatal, be it in the developing or the advanced world.  

From South Africa, Iran, Cambodia to Israel, Canada, United States and South Korea, accidents with severe casualties have been reported, attributed to defective doors, irregular speed, or snapped wires, electric or mechanical issue that mixes the signals in the elevator, Indeed, about the same period the accidents happened in Lagos, a similar one occurred in India where a 73-year- old lady died in an elevator car free fall at the Paras Tierea building. The lady reportedly took the lift at the eighth floor before the car developed a fault. She was accessed 45 minutes later but she did not make it. 

However, the public concern is that many of the disasters are preventable. Most of the times we do things so poorly. Safety demands more than good engineering. It takes independent regulation, and a meticulous, self-critical safety culture that endlessly searches for risks, according to most experts. At least, global best practices demand that elevators are regularly maintained and repaired. The accident that claimed Vware Diaso at Odan sparked an outrage because the hospital management ignored for a long while earlier complaints about the faulty elevator. And also damning, the emergency response is typically Nigerian, languid, and with everything in short supply, to save lives, including blood. 

 It is unfortunate that generally, regulatory authorities in our country are more reactive than proactive. They prefer to arrest a criminal rather than prevent the commission of a crime. Even the reactive approach to enforcement is fraught with unbearable inefficiency given response time to distress calls. The result is that lives are often lost before the intervention of the agencies. 

Going forward, we believe that the reactive approach to enforcement of regulation must change if the nation is to fundamentally check the spate of disasters enveloping it. Regulatory agencies need to apply the rules in accordance with extant laws that require them to provide effective supervision at every stage. It is necessary for the various regulatory agencies and disaster management bodies to collaborate and embark on a massive public enlightenment on safety regulations, dangers of non-compliance and basic steps to take in the event of an untoward occurrence.