Woman, 3-year-old son in elevator plunge from 8th floor to basement in Ghaziabad highrise

The elevator plummeted from the eighth floor to the basement in a Ghaziabad highrise. (Representational)

A 36-year-old woman and her three-year-old son narrowly escaped grave injuries when the elevator they were in suddenly plummeted from the eighth floor to the basement of the Prateek Grand society in Siddharth Vihar, Ghaziabad, last Saturday.

Gurpreet Kaur, clutching her son, Nirmit, attempted desperately to open the elevator door after it came to a bone-rattling halt. However, her efforts were in vain as the alarm system failed to respond. Then, an unexpected twist in this alarming episode occurred when the elevator automatically ascended two stories to the ground floor, and the doors swung open, granting Gupreet and Nirmit an exit.

The chilling incident unfolded around 10 pm, as the mother and son got on the elevator from the ground floor to the 16th. Two fellow residents joined them but they exited on the eighth floor. Soon after, the elevator malfunctioned.

Akash Deep Sharma, Gurpreet's husband, vividly recounted the terrifying ordeal to Times of India: "It stopped for a few seconds, and then started to go down. The lift had a free fall from the eighth floor to the basement. My wife and son held on to themselves as it landed and shook vigorously. My wife tried to press the alarm buttons, but none were working."

The plight of the mother-son duo was further exacerbated when they realized that their cries for help went unheard in the basement. Fifteen minutes of fear and uncertainty passed before the elevator spontaneously moved upwards, finally halting on the ground floor, allowing the two to escape.

Sharma raised questions concerning the maintenance agency's responsibility in ensuring elevator safety. He demanded answers: "This is a grave cause for concern. There was no power cut, so how did the lift malfunction? The alarms weren't working too. Yes, my wife and son did not suffer injuries, but they are traumatized."

Alarmed residents of Prateek Grand have reached out to the maintenance agency for an explanation, but in vain. It has been presumed that the malfunction resulted from severe voltage fluctuations, but the mystery behind why the alarm system failed remains unsolved.

Prateek Grand, with its 2,400 flats and 29 floors in each of its 24 towers, is home to 2,000 families.

In a related incident, a 73-year-old woman died of a possible cardiac arrest in a Noida high-rise elevator plunge due to wires snapping in August.