Elevator fall injures worker

Cause of downtown elevator accidents still a mystery

Many spooked workers taking the stairs

By BILL MURPHY
Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle

Jan. 15, 2009, 7:08AM

Melissa Phillip Chronicle

Deborah DeRouen was critically injured Dec. 9 in an elevator freefall at 717 Texas. Since then, she has been a patient at St. Joseph Hospital. She has undergone several surgeries.

Breaking down an elevator accident

At St. Joseph Hospital, her home for more than a month, Deborah DeRouen began describing the Dec. 9 elevator accident that left her with compound leg fractures and a fractured vertebra. But she didn't get too far before she choked up with tears.

"I've been sorting through it all a lot. I just get scared again," the 54-year-old financial consultant said Wednesday.

She was severely injured when an elevator at the 717 Texas building at Texas and Milam in downtown Houston precipitously fell from the 27th floor to the 23rd floor. She described the descent as an initial "freefall" that ended as quickly as it began when an emergency brake kicked in.

Although elevator accidents are rare, this was not the only one at the 33-story building in recent weeks. Two people were injured Monday when a nearby elevator in the same elevator bank dropped suddenly from the 27th floor to the 25th floor.

Some employees of the upper floors at 717 Texas are so spooked by the accidents that they have taken to walking down more than 20 stories to reach the first floor.

"My employees all took the stairs (Monday). They wouldn't take the elevator," said an employee who works on the 27th floor and asked not to be identified because he was unsure company managers would approve of his doing an interview.

Hines, which owns and manages the building which was completed in 2003, has shut down the two elevators that malfunctioned, but continues to operate other elevators in the same bank while they search for the cause of the accidents, according to e-mails that Hines has sent to tenants.

Elevators were being run at half-speed while Hines investigates the problem, the company said in an e-mail.

The city's elevator inspector has given Hines the go-ahead to operate the remaining elevators in the bank while Hines investigates the cause of the accidents, said Alvin Wright, spokesman for the city public works department.

"As long as (Hines) is making the effort to take care of their responsibilities, they are handling their responsibilities correctly," Wright said.

The city is investigating the two accidents but is awaiting Hines' reports on its investigations into their causes, Wright said.

Lawsuit filed

The elevators last passed an annual city inspection in October 2007, Wright said. The city, he said, was in the process of arranging an inspection when the Dec. 9 accident happened.

Kim Jagger, Hines' director of corporate communications, declined an interview but e-mailed a statement to the Chronicle: "There is a problem with our elevators at 717 Texas, and we're working around the clock to fix it. We have also taken preventative measures to minimize further entrapment risk."

Stephen Boutros, a lawyer, has filed a lawsuit against Hines and Fujitec, the company that maintains the elevators, on behalf of DeRouen. Boutros said Hines should shut down all the building's elevators until the cause of the crashes has been determined.

DeRouen said, "I have lots of friends who work there. People I talk to are terrified to use the elevators."

On Dec. 9, DeRouen, who has been working as a contract consultant for Rosetta Resources on the 27th floor, said she finished work about 5:30 p.m.

"I pressed one, and it started free-falling really fast," DeRouen said.

Sent airborne during the descent, she slammed hard into the floor when the elevator suddenly halted at the 23rd floor.

Her tibia bone tore through her leg between her knee and ankle, creating a long wound. Her ankle and toes on her left leg were fractured.