JPS elevator horror: We know more now, but has the danger passed?
As a Level I trauma center, John Peter Smith Hospital sees its share of traumatic injuries.
Yet, a month after having a colleague crushed while stepping onto a hospital elevator Jan. 20, Robert Earley is still traumatized.
“I can’t think of anything more horrific,” Earley said Friday at a news conference, where the emotional JPS president and CEO expressed empathy and concern for the victim and alarm about what he said were the elevator company’s failures and lack of response.
Earley, who said he was on the scene of the horror within half an hour, told reporters that thyssenkrupp Elevator Corp. took eight days to call him afterward.
Earley issued a statement at the news conference repeatedly condemning thyssenkrupp, also known as TKE. He was joined by lawyer Frank L. Branson, representing the critically injured JPS nurse Carren Stratford. Branson said Stratford has undergone multiple surgeries and has been in a coma since the accident.
For his part, attorney Branson showered praise on JPS — saying he’d never seen a more caring employer — while suggesting the elevator company was incompetent.
Of course, in any such controversy there are multiple perspectives, and thyssenkrupp’s must be taken into account if and when it chooses to respond to Friday’s allegations.
The remarkable news conference comes after weeks of painfully and regrettably slow revelations from JPS about the incident, leaving various news organizations to launch separate efforts to extract information. After its own public records request, the Star-Telegram reported just a day prior to the news conference that the elevator in question had maintenance and safety problems dating at least to 2015 — when there was a report of undersized hoist ropes and problems with the pressure setting on its door-closing system.
It had been out of service four times in the prior year, reporter Nichole Manna reported, including a two-week period in the month prior to the accident.
Other news reports alleged as many as 51 passenger “entrapments” at the hospital in the prior year, and that thyssenkrupp had been named in “18 cases” in Tarrant County since 2003.
A month later, there are more questions than answers.
But as fervently as the press and public have been pushing for answers, the push might have been even greater had we known the nature of the accident and the horrid extent of Nurse Stratford’s injuries.
“It’s been really devastating,” Earley said Friday.
We implore all parties involved to resist the usual pre-lawsuit information clampdown, and release all pertinent information as soon as it becomes available.
It’s a matter of public safety. The fact is, the accident that so seriously injured Nurse Stratford — a beloved member of the JPS staff known for serving her fellow man on mission trips — might have taken any of us in its jaws.
Moreover, Earley made clear Friday that he is still quite unsettled about the maintenance and operation of the hospital’s elevators. At least three of the facility’s 40-some elevators remained out of operation Friday afternoon, and more outages have been reported previously.
The incident may have been a month ago — even as Nurse Stratford’s torturous journey has only begun — but has the peril truly passed?